THE GERMAN EMPIRE 
OF CENTRAL AFRICA 

By EMIL ZIMMERMANN 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWYN SEVAN 




VEW YORK 



GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



1i£ 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE OF 
CENTRAL AFRICA 



THE 

GERMAN EMPIRE 

of 

CENTRAL AFRICA 

As the Basis of a New German 
World-Policy 

BY 

EMIL ZIMMERMANN 

Translated from the Original German 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BT 

EDWYN BEVAN 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



'/ta^ 






0' 



MAY 6 19(9 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vii 

I. — OsKAR Karstedt \ ix 

2. — Paul Leutwein xii 

3. — Hans Delbruck .......... xiv 

4. — Hermann Oncken xviii 

5. — Paul Rohrbach xx 

6.— Franz Kolbe xxiii 

7. — Freiherr Albrecht von Rechenberg . . . xxvii 

8.— Davis Trietsch xxix 

9. — Emil Zimmermann xxxiii 

10. — Dr. Wilhelm Sole xliv 

1 1. —''Deutsche Weltpolitik und kein Krieg" . xlix 

12. — BrITISkOf-POSITION TO MiTTEL- A FR/KA ... Iv 

V 



vi Contents 

THE GERMAN EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AFRICA 

PAGE 

I.— Position as a World-Power i 

II. — The Way to Become a World-Power ... 5 

III. — The Building up of German World-Power . 16 

IV. — The Oversea Foundations of^German World- 
Power 22 

V. — The White Man in Central Africa ... 37 

VI. — Mittel-Afrika as a Factor in the Economic 

Struggle 49 

VII. — The Organization of German Mittel-Afrika 56 



INTRODUCTION 

pRACTICALLY all Germans, with the exception of the 
-*• Minority Socialists, ar-e agreed that when this war, pro- 
voked by Germany and Austria-Hungary, comes to a final 
settlement, somehow or somewhere Germany must be able 
to point to a gain, in order to prove that the huge agonizing 
effort was not made for nothing. There ar€, on the other 
hand, notable varieties of opinion in Germany as to the direc- 
tion in which the gain is to be sought. The Pan-Germans 
declare that the thing that matters supremely is that Germany 
should annex more territory in Europe — especially the 
Flanders coast and the French mining-districts of Briey and 
Longwy. Unless Germany gets these, they say, she will have 
lost the war. A very large body of opinion, on the other hand, 
is strongly opposed to the 'Tlanders politicians," as Emil 
Zimmermann calls them in his book. This body of opinion 
stands for the formula "no annexations" — none, at any rate, 
in Europe. It says that even if the war were to end on the 
basis -of the status quo in Europe, Germany would have won. 
It is often described as "Moderate" opinion, as against the 
Pan-German annexationists. It differs from the Pan-Germans 
also in internal politics. Pan-German opinion is mainly re- 
actionary and anti-democratic ; "Moderate" opinion is, gener- 
ally speaking, in favour of democratic reform, of a govern- 
ment more representative of the people and more responsible 
to the people. Very often you may see utterance^ of "Moderate" 
circles in Germany, protesting against annexations and 



yll[ Introduction 

advocating democracy, commented upon in English papers, 
as proving that the Germans are abandoning all ambmous 
schemes. This book is the product of such "Moderate 
opinion; it will perhaps serve to show that the comfortmg 
view of the ''Moderates" needs reconsideration. 

The ''Moderates," no less than the Pan-Germans, desire 
that Germany should be able to show her position 
strengthened after the war. There are two sub-vaneties of 
"Moderate" opinion with regard to the direction in which 
Germany is to gain. One is the Mittel-Europa school. This 
lays the emphasis upon a closer union, political, military^ and 
economic, between the German Empire and its Allies— 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey-in such wise that 
there is a continuous belt of German power from Hamburg 
to the Persian Gulf, a great Central-European realm capable 
of defying the world. This scheme could be realized with 
practically no annexation. The other sub-variety sees 
Germany's future greatness secured by a great Empire in 
tropical Africa, In Mittel-Afrika, extending right across the 
Continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. This in- 
volves considerable annexations, but annexations in Africa, 
not Europe. Very often the two schemes — Mittel-Europa and 
Mittel-Afrika — are held both together. But commonly even 
those who hold both ideas lay greater stress on one than on 
the other. 

It may be questioned whether any strong spontaneous 
Interest is felt by the German masses in the lost oversea 
colonies. We find, for example, the champions of the 
Colonial Idea occasionally complain of wide-spread popular 
indiflference, though they note with satisfaction that "the war 
has turned the great mass of the working-classes, who had 
hitherto been indifferent to the Colonial movement, or even 
averse from It, Into Its most convinced friends" (Dr. Solf, 



Introduction ix 

Secretary of State for the Colonies, quoted in the Kreus- 
Zeitung for January 9, 1918). But if gain is not to be had 
in other directions, then the gain of colonial territory acquires 
value as a salve to national pride, which would be wounded, 
if the war ended in loss all round. It is perhaps for this 
reason that of late the idea of the African Empire has seemed 
to be in the ascendant. 

It is important that the English-speaking peoples should 
have a clear statement put before them of this German pro- 
gramme, a statement exhibiting the hopes and intentions 
attached to it in the German mind. A circumstantial state- 
ment by a German is of special value, as a first-hand document, 
and this is just what we have in the book by Emil Zimmer- 
mann here translated. The book was written for German 
readers; British and American readers may be trusted to 
draw their own conclusions. 

But Emil Zinimermann is not the only publicist who is 
busy displaying the magnificent possibilities of Central Africa 
to the German people and working up enthusiasm for the 
scheme. It may be well, in an introduction to Zimmermann's 
book, to take some note of statements of the same gospel by 
others. It will be seen how closely parallel all the statements 
are, and their combination may give the British reader, like 
a composite photograph, a good idea of what Mittel-Afrika 
means. 

l._OSKAR KARSTEDT 

We may begin with a summary statement of it by Dr. Oscar 
Karstedt, editor of the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, in a little 
pamphlet called Koloniale Friedensziele (Colonial Peace- 
Aims), which is one of a series published by Duncker in 
Weimar for the purposes of popular enlightenment. He 
begins by explaining generally that the Germans need tropical 



X Introduction 

dependencies for two reasons, (i) in order to have a supply 
of raw-materials for their industries without depending upon 
foreigners, (2) in order to have naval stations overseaJ. 
As to the latter Dr. Karstedt says :— 

Oversea fleets in the future will have no more value 
than old scrap-iron, unless they have the support of points 
d'appiii overseas which would be capable of serving at any 
moment as munition-depots, coaling-stations, docks, etc. 

Think for a moment how far more deadly the work of 
German cruisers might have been, if Dar-es-Salaam on the 
Indian Ocean or Liideritz Bay and Duala on the Atlantic 
had been fully fitted-out naval bases, in which our ships 
would have had facilities for getting in fresh supplies or 
effecting repairs! — (p. ii.) 

He presently rehearses the Mittel-Afrika gospel as follows : 

An appropriation, as extensive as possible, of French, 
English, Belgian and Portuguese possessions in Central 
Africa would yield another advantage besides those already 
specified. The colonial possessions which have hitherto 
belonged to us in Africa had an essentially disconnected, 
scattered character. . . . Togo, the Cameroons, German 
South-West Africa and German East Africa had no kind 
of connexion with each other by land. English, French, 
Belgian and Portuguese territories intruded between them 
from all sides. Since, moreover, in consequence of the 
defect of our naval policy, it was impossible to defend our 
colonies from the sea, they lay one and all at the outbreak 
of war like isolated fortresses, round which an unbroken 
line of investment could be drawn. In this fact lies the 
principal reason why they all, with the exception of East 
Africa, fell comparatively quickly a prey to the enemies 
who assailed them from all sides. At the same time it 
was shown that the larger tropical colonies are, the easier 
they are to hold. The Cameroons and East Africa, the 
two largest German colonies in Africa, one over 750,000 
square kilometres, the other a full million square kilo- 
metres, were able to hold out, although wholly unprepared 
for a war with European enemies, in a way which the most 
expert opinion could not have foreseen, . . . The secret is 
to be found in the stupendous difficulties which every 



Introduction xi 

extensive tropical area, owing to climate and other physical 
impediments, offers to an invader. If even a Napoleon could 
not but fail in the attempt to conquer gigantic Russia, could 
not dominate so vast a space, a German Mittel-Afrika 
reaching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, would' 
under the physical conditions of the tropics, be prac- 
tically invulnerable. Tropical colonial territory finds its 
best security in its size. The more extensive and co- 
herent the territory is, the better it is protected against 
attack. 

A German Mittel-Afrika, as it is here sketched in outline, 
would besides yield the great advantage, from the point of 
view of world-policy, that it would set a bar, once for all, 
to England's effort to become mistress of Africa from the 
Cape to Cairo. Within the territory, further, there would 
be enough places on the coast, which, when properly forti- 
fied and equipped, would be capable of furnishing Germany 
with the naval bases which it absolutely must have upon 
the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Such a German over- 
sea Empire in Africa would be able to bid defiance to the 
strongholds of British power in Africa (Egypt and South 
Africa), the mainstays of the whole British world-power. 
It would give us, not only a great part of what we want 
in order to be economically independent of England, but it 
would also put the means into our hands of striking Eng- 
land home at any moment with the help of our navy and 
the man-power latent in this future dominion. — (pp. 13-16.) 

Some of the exponents of Mittel-Afrika, as we shall see, 
would be willing for Germany to give up many of her former 
colonies, if thereby she could secure the Central- African 
continuous Empire. But Dr. Karstedt is unwilling to give 
up anything except Kiao-chou — not the South Sea colonies, 
not German South-West Africa. Of his ambitions in the 
South Seas we need say nothing here, where we are concerned 
with Africa. As to the dimensions of the German African 
domain, Karstedt says : — 



With regard to the extent of our colonial domain in 
Africa, the first consideration must be the rounding-off of 
our territory in such a way that the German possessions, 
which have hitherto been wholly detached from each other, 
should be welded together into, a single block by the 



xii Introduction 

annexation of enemy territory. Such a block, by its 
magnitude, would furnish a sufficient guarantee that any fresh 
attempt to conquer the country by force of arms would be 
to bite upon granite. The Belgian Congo by itself might 
serve the purpose of making the connexion between German 
East Africa and the Cameroons. But the Belgian Congo 
alone, even when our former colonies are joined to it, could 
never give us economic independence in the matter of raw 
materials. For that purpose we need in particular an ex- 
tension of our territory towards the North-West by the 
acquisition of the French West-African possessions and, 
if possible, that of British Nigeria and the Gold Coast.— 
(pp. 18-19.) 

There is another point upon which Dr. Oskar Karstedt 
insists. German prestige has been lowered before the eyes of 
the natives: atonement must also be made before their eyes. 

Nothing makes any impression upon the native except 
what he sees with his own eyes. He has seen the Germans, 
his former lords and masters (Beherrscher), in a condition 
of the deepest humiliation, a humiliation which no doubt 
our enemies designed for the special reason of its effect 
upon native psychology. Even if, in the peace negotiations, 
the demand for a personal compensation to the victims of 
these brutalities is enforced, that will not do away with the 
great, perhaps the irreparable, injury which the prestige of 
the Germans, and their colonial future in Africa, has sus- 
tained. Successful colonial policy among the lower races 
makes the unquestioned prestige of the colonizing people a 
fundamental consideration. A people whose representatives 
have been treated before the eyes of the natives as the Ger- 
mans have been, is burdened in consequence of these things 
with a handicap affecting all its future colonial activity, which 
may be a crushing one if the proper measures are not taken. 
Whatever else therefore happens, care must be taken that 
such an atonement is made before the eyes of the natives as 
may be most suitable to impress people of their psychology and 
ideas. — (p. 21.) 

2.— PAUL LEUTWEIN 

Another writer who has made Mittel-Afrika his special 
theme is Dr. Paul Leutwein, the son of General Theodor 
Leutwein, who was Governor of German South- West Africa 



Introduction xiii 

from 1898 to 1905. I have before me a little book of some 
50 pages called Mittel-Europa^—Mittel-Afrika, published by 
Paul Leutwein in 191 7. 

He draws the same conclusions as Dr. Karstedt from the 
surprisingly tough resistance put up by the German colonies 
in this war : — 



If the three colonies (South-West Africa, the Cameroons, 
East Africa), severed as they were from each other and 
unprepared, have been a really positive factor among the 
forces engaged in this war, how much greater would be the 
effect of a single great colonial Empire, fitted out with all the 
means of modern scientific warfare against every hostile 
attack by land or sea ! Such a colonial dominion, in view 
of the experiences of this war, would be absolutely invincible. 
— (P- 47.) 



Leutwein states the Mittel-Afrika scheme very much in 
the same terms as Karstedt, but he has a more sober sense 
of the uncertainty of the future, which must throw upon all 
imperial projects a shadow of doubt. He says : — 



The course of the war in the colonies has taught us that 
small colonial territories are scarcely capable of serious 
defence. These therefore we must in the future renounce. 
Further, the disconnectedness of our colonial possessions, 
far-scattered and without good frontiers, has made its 
disadvantages sensibly felt. ... It is natural that an 
urgent desire should now exist that our colonial territory 
should take a new shape. ... It has been proclaimed in 
many quarters that the honour of the German Empire 
requires that we should get back all our colonies. This point 
of view is sentimental, and, besides that, it is not true. 
By means of equivalent compensation, territorial or com- 
mercial, Germany's honour would be no less safeguarded 
and at the same time the way made easier for an agreement 
with our present enemies. . . . Many colonial politicians 
have come more and more to the conviction that an ex- 
tensive territory in Central Africa, bordering both on the 
Indian Ocean and on the Atlantic, would afford the most 
favourable conditions for our future colonial activity. This 
domain would have to include our most important posses- 



xjy Introduction 

sions-the Cameroons, East Africa and the northern half 
of South-West Africa, and be amalgamated mto a single 
whole by the addition of the Belgian Congo, together with 
strips of territory from the British, French, and Portuguese 
possessions and from British South Africa. The precise de- 
limitation of German Mittel-Afrika had better be left undis- 
cussed on grounds of political sagacity. Careful memoranda 
have been drawn up on the subject, which must for the present 
remain confidential. Only let so much be said : German Mit- 
tel-Afrika, as a field for the life of peoples, as an economic 
factor, and as a basis of political power, will be found to 
satisfy all requirements. The thought guiding its delimitation 
has been to provide a good prospect of success for the neces- 
sary negotiations with regard to give-and-take arrange- 
ments, and to draw the new frontiers in such a way as 
to give the least possible occasion for friction later on. 
The scheme includes a maximum and a minimum demand 
between which, according to the ultimate issue of the 
war, and according to the skill of our negotiators, the 
final delimitation will in all probability be drawn. — 
(PP- 5051O 



3.— HANS DELBRUCK 

In the front rank of those who preach Mittel-Afrika is 
Dr. Hans Delbriick, one of Germany's leading historians and 
publicists, author of a standard work on th€ Art of War 
from ancient times, and the successor of Treitschke, in the 
editorial chair of the great monthly periodical, the Preussische 
Jahrbiicher. In his book Bismarcks Erhe, published in 191 5, 
he wrote : — 



The most sure of all modes of colonization is that by 
agricultural settlers {Bauernkolonie). . . . But colonies of 
this kind we cannot think of establishing, for the simple 
reason that we have no surplus population of workers on 
the land {Baiiern). Our whole oversea emigration has 
sunk since the middle of the nineties to between twenty and 
thirty thousand souls a year, w^hilst at the same time we 
employ in Germany near on a million foreign labourers and 
workmen, Russians, Poles, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Italians, 
Scandinavians. Germany is not a country from which there 
is a flow of population from within outwards, but a country 



Introduction xv 

into which there is a flow of population from outside. The 
peasant-farmers and agricultural labourers, who are suit- 
able for settlement on the land, we need most urgently at 
home, and have very few whom we can afford to send 
overseas. The people who must fill our colonies and must 
give them their special characteristics are the upper stratum 
— the thousands of men of medium or of high education 
whom our rich school-system continues incessantly to turn 
out, and for whom we cannot find adequate occupation in 
the^ Fatherland. Men In their thirties, in the prime of 
their strength, who have acquired all the knowledge and 
all the skill necessary for a large circle of activities, sit 
here amongst us with nothing or little to do, and wait for 
some post with mean remuneration. These are the njen 
whom we must send out, as technical experts, merchants, 
planters, doctors, inspectors, officers and civil servants, to 
rule over the great multitudes of the lower races, just as 
the English rule over India. But it cannot meet the case 
simply to spread out these upper strata here and there 
over a few, greater or smaller, areas; the only way of 
attaining a durable and secure gain for our nation is to con- 
stitute a continuous dominion, large enough to contain 
regions of different physical characteristics, which supple- 
ment each other and lend each other mutual support and 
strength. A very large continuous extent of territory, if 
it is under one central administration, acquires a certain 
political coherence; the fact that it is a single customs- 
area creates connexions and interests which are not lightly 
dissolved. Towns with any considerable white population 
and their own communal life require a very large hinterland. 
In order to bind such an oversea Empire quite firmly to 
the mother-country, some portions at any rate of the 
dominion must be of such a kind that a German com- 
munity may maintain and propagate itself there — not a 
changing community only, but one planted in the soil, 
possibly in some places even an agricultural one. . . . 

— (pp. 192-195-) 

The first and most important of all the national demands 
which we must raise at the future Peace Congress must 
be for a really big colonial Empire, a German India. The 
Empire must be large enough to be capable of conducting 
its own defence in the event of war, A really big territory 
no enemy can completely occupy. A really big territory 
feeds its own troops and contains abundant man-power for 
reserves and militia. When the principal points are linked 
up by railways, the various districts are able to furnish each 
other mutual support. A really big territory can have its 



xvi Introduction 

own factories of ammunition and implements of war. A 
really big territory can have its harbours and coaling-stat- 
ions. . . . — (p. 202.) 

Is Central Africa— the region which one naturally first 
thinks of— capable, even in its largest extent, of meeting 
all these requirements? Has it a suitable soil? Is it fertile 
enough— fertile, I mean, not only in the merely physical 
sense, but all around? Can it bear the weight we would put 
upon it? Or should we rather turn our thoughts to Further 
India or Cochin China? This is not the place to discuss these 
questions. — (p. 206.) 



A footnote runs : — 



In order to obviate misunderstandings, I should like to 
add expressly that the Belgian and French Congo alone 
would not suffice to make the German India which we must 
strive for and which we must claim according to our success 
in the war. These equatorial regions may, it is true, yield 
riches later on, which to-day we can hardly imagine, but 
for the next generation, in consequence of their extremely 
thin population, they must remain unremunerative, indeed, 
cost more than they bring. Not till the rich surround- 
ing lands, nozv in English possession, are joined to them 
will the adequate material basis for a German India be 
there. — (p. 206.) 

The question vi^hether Africa v^as capable of furnishing 
the requirements for the ''German India," which Hans 
Delbriick left unanswered in 191 5, he has since then answered 
by an emphatic Yes. He has made Mittel-Afrika together 
with the German control of the Turkish Empire an essential 
part of his programme. As lately as last June (1917) he 
ivrote in the Preussische Jahrhiicher: 

Supposing that either by victories on land^or by the 
submarine war we so far brought England down that, in 
spite of the help of America, she gave up further fighting 
and was willmg to concede us a direct or indirect dominion 
over Belgmm, even so we ought to say: "Not Belgium, 
but Africa; not the coalfields of Charleroi, but Nigeria- not 



Introduction xvii 

Zeebriigge, but the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape Verde 
Islands; not Antwerp, but Lagos, Zanzibar, and Uganda, and 
Gibraltar for Spain. Not economic advantages by commer- 
cial treaties wrung from the enemy, but war-indemnities either 
in cash down or in raw materials. . . ." 

If our victory is great enough, we may hope to imite the 
whole of Central Africa together with our old South-West 
under our hand — Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold 
Coast, Dahomey, populous Nigeria with his harbour Lagos, 
the Cameroons, the luxuriant islands of San Thome and 
Principe, the French and the Belgian Congo, Angola with 
its great potentialities and its excellent harbours, the region 
of Katanga rich in minerals. Northern Rhodesia, Nyassa- 
land, Mozambique with Delagoa Bay, Madagascar, Ger- 
man East Africa, Zanzibar, Uganda, in addition to this 
the great well-constructed harbour of Ponta Delgada in 
the Azores, one of the most important and most frequented 
coaling-stations in the world, and Horta, one of the most 
important central stations of the Transatlantic Telegraph 
cable. "There are very few points in the Atlantic Ocean 
so admirably situated for purposes of traffic, of such 
importance from the point of view of political geography, 
and of such strength from the point of view of military 
and naval strategy as the Azores will be, so soon as they 
pass into the possession of a Power with a strong fleet," 
so Hans Meyer writes in Deutsche Politik (Heft 20). To- 
day they belong to Portugal, which is at war with us. To 
Portugal belong also to-day the Cape Verde Islands 
w^ith the harbour of Porta Grande, likewise one of 
the most frequented coaling-stations of the Eastern 
Atlantic. ... 

Is it true that we should get no enjoyment out of a colonial 
Empire, that we should be only in the position of "precarious 
tenants" unless we permanently kept England intimidated by 
our possession of the Flemish coast? There can be no more 
baseless superstition? Even suppose the U-boats failed to 
end England's sea-hegemony for good in this war, even sup- 
pose England remained permanently our superior on sea — 
even so, that Central-African Germany would be strong 
enough in itself to repel every attack from outside. Has 
not our East Africa, as it is, maintained itself for nearly 
three years with nothing but its own diminutive forces? But 
we should so equip our African Empire with weapons and 
munition factories and depots that it would be able to hold 
its own against a world of enemies. By means of our mer- 
cantile U-boats it would remain in communication with the 
home country, even supposing the English were once more 



xviii Introduction 



complete masters of the open seas. A certain number of 
war U-boats stationed there would even defend the islands 
and their harbours against English men-of-war. 

Will the English ever concede us such a colonial Empire .'' 
I hope they will be compelled to do so. If they are con- 
fronted with the choice of either allowing us to have these 
colonies or of seeing us establish a direct or indirect dominion 
over Belgium, it will come easier to them to let us have the 
colonial Empire. 



4.— HERMANN ONCKEN 

Another name scarcely less virell-known than that of Hans 
Delbruck is that of the Heidelberg Professor of History, 
Hermann Oncken, the editor of the great German universal 
history. Oncken, like Delbruck, is a "Moderate," an 
opponent of the Pan-Germans, and w^as one of the men of 
distinction who joined the "German National Committee for 
the Preparation of an Honorable Peace," formed in the summer 
of 1916 to combat the Pan-German propaganda and support 
Bethmann Hollweg. A few months ago (in 191 7) he 
published a small book entitled Das alte und das neue Mittel- 
Eiiropa (The Old and the New Mittel-Europa). In the course 
of this he devotes some pages to Mittel-Afrika: — 



Completely to upset the English calculations, it will be 
necessary that the German war programme, instead of con- 
fining itself to Mittel-Europa, should mark out in firm out- 
line yet another attainable aim on beyond. This aim would 
not consist in annexations on the West [the Pan-German 
programme], which we might feel disposed to demand in 
view of the military situation, but in utilizing our military 
successes, which have given us pawns outside our frontiers 
in Belgium and Northern France, in order to obtain com- 
pensations in Africa. If England to-day is prosecuting the 
war with such intense efforts, that is in order to deprive 
us of these pawns; unless she recovers them she cannot safely 
garner in her colonial gains and fight the economic war 
through to a victorious end. England is fighting for a war- 
aim which lies outside Europe. We, on our side, are fighting 
in Flanders and Champagne, in the first instance, indeed, 



Introduction xix 

against the implacable will which desires to tear German 
land away from the body of the Empire, but at the same 
time indirectly in order to get back our colonial territory, 
and to increase it. We arc fighting for an Empire in Central 
Africa. 

Our experience in the war has taught us that our scat- 
tered colonial possessions could not be held in war against 
the British sea-power. To that extent the words which 
Bismarck addressed to the English, when we first entered 
upon a colonial policy, have proved true: "We know that 
you could attack our colonies successfully, and that we could 
not retaliate, because you have command of the sea." What 
we want therefore is a colonial Empire wdiich we do not 
hold by England's good pleasure, an Empire so self-sufficing 
that it can draw upon its own forces for its defence. The 
fact that a numerically quite weak body of German heroes 
could hold East Africa for three years has proved that a 
largish oversea country, with a numerous population, can be 
defended by its own resources, even if cut off from the 
mother-country. After this experience we are entitled to say 
that a German Africa which stretched right across the body 
of the African Continent, would really possess, in a yet much 
higher degree, the capability of defending itself. Indeed, if 
the military communications and the native man-power were 
properly organized, if naval stations and coaling-stations were 
established in connexion with our new arm, the U-boat, a 
continuous territory of adequate extent could be rendered 
as good as unassailable. If before the war the disconnected 
character of our colonial possessions constituted a weakness 
in our world-possession, the bringing of them together would 
mean such a strengthening of our position as would have 
effects radiating outwards, and make our power in the world 
tell far beyond our own frontiers (cine Stdrkiing von innen 
heraus, die sich audi nach aussen hin machtpolitische Gcltung 
verschaffen wird). It is not the case therefore that unless 
we have control of the Flemish coast, with the attendant 
naval advantages, we cannot feel secure in the possession of 
colonies, that in order to be able to defend our colonies against 
England we must hold in our hands, as an indispensable con- 
dition, the celebrated "pistol pointed at England's heart" 
[Antwerp]. There is another way, and a surer way. 

We shall be able to make sacrifices at other points in order 
to gain an extensive compact colonial dominion. So long as 
it is a question of a restoration of the status quo all round, 
we shall insist on having back our possessions in the South 
Seas and in East Asia among the rest. If on the other hand 
the status quo is dropped, then we shall reconcile ourselves 



^x Introduction 

to the loss of our other possessions m order to bring our 
African possessions into territorial connexion. For such a 
consolidation we shall have to get the main part of the Bel- 
gian Congo State and of the Portuguese colonies, i. e., in part 
territories which the English before the war were prepared 
to recognize as belonging in principle to our sphere of in- 
fluence. Local accommodations would not be ruled out, so 
long as East Africa, so gloriously defended, was not sacri- 
ficed. We should have to seek a completion of our domain 
in the West-African districts, which have such high economic 
value for us, and which France would have to cede in order 
to redeem the part of her soil in our occupation. One may 
emphatically assert that a colonial Empire of such an extent— 
always provided that it can be made as good as unassailable 
to correspond with our own position of unassailable power — 
would have far greater value for the whole economic system 
of Mittel-Europa than this or that piece of colonizable land 
in the East [/. e. in Russia], than this or that rectification of 
our frontier on the West, desirable as that might be from the 
point of view of our industries. A colonial Empire, if one 
takes a large view, might become a life-and-death matter for 
our economic policy. Even a strengthened Mittel-Europa, as 
we have emphasized already, would still be far from self- 
sufficing; in the matter, at any rate, of a whole number of 
important raw materials, vegetable fats and fodder-stuffs, 
cotton and rubber, it would have needs which could not be 
supplied from European soil (even if the frontiers of "Europe" 
be carried forward in any direction), but only from tropical 
or sub-tropical colonies. Only through the assured possession 
of such colonies should we attain at any rate a certain measure 
of self-sufficiency. Without such assured possession we 
should, in view of our enemies' plans for boycott, be in dan- 
ger of sinking into a position of economic dependence, how- 
ever great our military strength might be, and thereby be- 
coming permanently a second-class Power. 

On this condition alone should we be prepared to re- 
nounce all conquests in the West, and especially to give 
back undiminished the pawn which we hold in our hand — 
Belgium. . . .— (pp. I44-I47-) 



5.— PAUL ROHRBACH 

Dr. Paul Rohrbach, another man who occupies a foremost 
place among Germany's influential publicists, is, like Delbriick 
and Oncken, a strong advocate of Mittel-Afrika. Like them, 



Introduction xxi 

too, he is a stout opponent of the Pan-German scheme for 
annexations in Flanders. Already before the war he was 
known as the writer of books on the expansion of Germany 
overseas. In one of these, Der deutsche Gedanke in der 
Welt, he indicated that although the existing German colonies 
were poor in extent, compared with the oversea dependencies 
of Great Britain and France, "the real epoch of colonial policy 
on the grand scale in Africa was for Germany still to come" 
(dass die eigentliche Epoche grosser afrikanischer Kolonial- 
politik uns noch bevorsteht). Dr. Rohrbach now stands 
principally for the Berlin-to-Bagdad Idea and for a policy of 
uncompromising hostility to Russia. But he is anxious to 
insist that although he advocates, as the thing of most imme- 
diate urgency, Germany's obtaining control of the Near East, 
he does not regard this as the final satisfaction of Germany's 
claims, but as the necessary basis for more magnificent expan- 
sion later on : — 



There are already almost 200 millions of men who speak 
English, and more than 400 millions more are under the in- 
fluence of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and culture. Unless we, 
too, expand as a strong oversea people, the world will end 
by becoming Anglo-Saxon. We need territories in which to 
plant offshoots of our stock overseas and procure the raw 
materials of other climates upon German soil. In this sense 
our policy in the Near East is only the preliminary step 
(Vorstufe) in German world-policy, and nothing is more 
mistaken than to represent our plan with regard to Turkey 
as a rival to our colonial plan — or the other way round! — 
{Die Hilfe, May 25, 1916, p. 343.) 



A few months later he wrote : — 

Africa is one of the three worlds which are going through 
a process of reconstruction (Umbau) from within and from 
without before our eyes. ... In Africa the thing needed is 
to bring the enormous quantities of utilizable ground and the 
enormous quantities of utilizable human labour-power which 



^^- Introduction 

now lie fallow into a fruitful and productive relation to each 
oTer-to the advantage of the black, and fe advantage o 
the superior white, race. The German people must and shall 
secure its proportionate share in that work. Fmally-and th s 
is almost more important than any other pomt— Africa on its 
healthy uplands affords enough territory for settlement, upon 
which a prolific people may grow up, German in stock, rooted 
from African soil. Those are the aims which we set before 
ourselves ; and if the war gives us for these purposes a broader 
territorial basis in Africa than we had before, it is our ene- 
mies whom we shall have to thank for it\— (Die Hilfe, No- 
vember 2, I916, p. 718.) 

The unexpectedly long resistance offered by the German 
colonies in Africa confirmed, as we hav-e seen, the hopes of 
the enthusiasts for Mittel-Afrika. In the same article from 
which we have last quoted, Rohrbach wrote : — 

Our black soldiery has given a very good account of itself 
in East Africa. In the Cameroons, too, our black troops 
fought well, but the bravery and devotion to the German 
cause shown by the askaris of East Africa is something won- 
derful. This is another proof, if one were needed, that our 
way of handling natives, severe and at the same time just, 
is the right way for the Africans and superior to the English 
system of spoiling them (dem englischen Verhdtschelungs- 
system iiberlegen). 

In his own paper, Deutsche Politik, Rohrbach rebuked 
those who had suffered their hope as to the future German 
African Empire to grow faint. The war, he argued, was 
admittedly going to compel Germany's enemies to recognize 
the new Great Power of Mittel-Eiiropa-i^\\is>-T\xrkQ.y, and if 
it could do that, it could certainly compass the much smaller 
thing, compel Britain and France to give back to Germany 
her African colonies: — 



That Botha will be seriously in a position, as soon as the 
war as a whole is decided, to refuse obedience to the British 
Government, when it instructs him to give back South-West 
Africa, is an idea which cannot be seriously entertained. — 
(Deutsche Politik, February 18, 1916.) 



introduction xxiii 

If Germany can compel its enemies to recognize Mitt el- 
Euro pa-plus-Turkey, "then we can also compel them not only 
to give us back our colonies in Africa, but to cede to us what- 
ever we need." 

6.— FRANZ KOLBE 

In the number of Deutsche Politik for December 22, 1916, 
is an article by Franz Kolbe, explaining Germany's need of 
a big colonial Empire with all the stereotyped arguments. 
The necessity of a supply of raw materials for German indus- 
tries from Germany's own territories is, as usual, put in the 
forefront. But Kolbe also indicates the importance of 
Mittel-Afrika as a factor in future wars between Germany 
and the British Empire: — 



If German Mitt el-Africa comes about and our former 
colonies are given back to us, German Central Africa, ade- 
quately supplied with munitions, could hold out for the longest 
war. The larger this German colonial Empire is, the more 
troops will it be able to furnish, the more risky will an attack 
upon it be for our enemies, and the more enemy troops 
will our colonial troops keep engaged in Africa in the event 
of war. The larger this German colonial Empire in 
Mittel-Afrika is, the greater part will it play in future naval 
warfare, on the supposition that the most important har- 
bours — Duala, Dar-es-Salaam, etc. — are fitted out as naval 
bases. 



Kolbe followed up the subject in the same periodical on 
February 2, 1917 : — 

We must take into consideration that the Peace is certain 
to bring us a big increase of our colonial Empire. . . . We 
may anticipate with assurance that our new colonial Empire 
will be capable of supplying a considerable part of our 
demand for certain raw materials, as soon as it is properly 
opened up, so that from year to year it will be able 
to furnish increasing quantities of raw materials to Ger- 
many. . . .— (p. 153.) .... . 14 

With regard to the value of African territory as land 



^^•^ Introduction 

for settlement— one may say that the value of German South- 
West Africa and of the uplands of German East Africa 
have never yet been sufficiently recognized; when Angola 
. passes into our possession, we should acquire new territories 
there also, adapted for colonization by white men. . • • ^"er 
the war we may expect with certainty a reflux of Germans 
on a large scale from various foreign countries, especial y 
of German agriculturists. It will largely be a case of people 
who have already gained experience in tropical or sub-tropical 

agriculture. ... , • i i- • 

A discussion of the extent of the future colonial Empire 
is at present ruled out for obvious reasons. Let us assume 
that the Peace gives us a Central-African colonial Empire 
which corresponds, roughly speaking, with the territory which 
England was ready to concede to us in the negotiations of 
1914— let us assume that, besides the recovery of our German 
colonies, we get as our future domain the whole ^ of 
the Belgian Congo, the whole of French Equatorial Africa, 
and Angola. 

What will the capabilities of this German Central-African 
empire be for defence? A glance at the map shows that 
the frontiers of our several colonies will be far less exposed. 
The danger in the case of the Cameroons, for instance, will 
be reduced by two-thirds, since the only frontier still needing 
to be defended will be that towards Nigeria; the whole 
French frontier will be eliminated. For German East Africa, 
the need to defend the western frontier will have gone; for 
German South-West Africa, the need to defend the northern 
frontier. We should indeed have a new frontier to defend 
in the old French Equatorial Africa, the northern Sahara 
frontier — no very hard task — and in the east there would 
be the frontier between ourselves and the Egyptian Sudan. 
But this latter frontier, again, is far from being exposed to 
the same danger as the French Cameroon frontier in former 
days, because the Egyptian Sudan is inhabited by fanatical 
Moslems, who could much more easily be stirred up to revolt 
by instigations from the German territory than induced to 
attack the territory of Germany, the friend and ally of the 
Khalif. German East Africa, it is true, would still have the 
frontier towards British East Africa to defend, and thus be 
still threatened from the north. The south of the Belgian 
Congo, the east of Angola, the east and south of German 
South-West Africa are conterminous with British territory. 
England therefore in this quarter, too, would be our chief 
enemy. If, however, one considers that German South-West 
Africa, with nothing but much-reduced colonial troops, which 
were intended (like the garrisons of our other colonies) only 



Introduction xxv 

to maintain internal order against native risings, held out for 
twelve months, and the Cameroons for seventeen months, 
whilst German East Africa is still, after twenty-six months^ 
offering a brave resistance, it must be admitted that the 
English, if they undertook a campaign against this future 
Central-African Empire, would have a pretty difficult job, 
in order to gain even such successes as they have gained 
in German East Africa, supposing we had taken precau- 
tions beforehand to put the German colonial Empire in a 
proper state of defence. We should have no lack of man- 
power, none certainly of native man-power. The principal 
reason why German South-West Africa and the Cameroons 
had to give in was deficiency of munitions, the second reason 
was deficiency of foodstuffs. But our supply both of muni- 
tions and of foodstuffs could be rendered secure without diffi- 
culty, as the different parts of Mittel-Afrika were linked up 
by railways, so that the points of strategic importance might 
be occupied in the shortest possible time and the available 
foodstuffs transported from the places where they were pro- 
duced to the places where they were needed. That this 
Central-African colonial Empire could produce sufficient food- 
stuffs for the white population — especially wheat, maize, rice, 
meat, etc. — cannot be doubted. In marking out the territories 
to be ceded to us particular account would, of course, be taken 
of the need to secure the strongest frontiers from the point 
of view of strategic defence. It would no doubt be easy to 
provide the colonial troops with arms and ammunition in the 
first instance, and also to equip adequate reinforcements in 
the event of war, from the rifles, machine-guns, guns and 
ammunition, which we have captured in the war. Our con- 
cern would principally be how to create an adequate reserve 
stock of munitions and how to make it possible to replace 
the munitions used up by new supplies in the colonies them- 
selves, i. c, the erection of munition-factories. Besides that, 
points of strategic importance would, of course, be fortified. 
The cool insolence with which the English penetrated into 
the unfortified harbour of Dar-es-Salaam, although they had 
been expressly prohioited from carrying out warlike opera- 
tions there, has proved to us that the safety of our colonies 
will not be sufficiently guaranteed, unless we establish 
an adequate number of fortified naval bases. Besides that. 
we should have, of course, to keep ready at hand a 
squadron of fast cruisers of the necessary strength, as well 
as the other kinds of auxiliary vessels for defence — 
submarines, gunboats, mine-layers, etc. — all in sufficient 
numbers. 

But how are we to find the money for all this? I hear 



xxvi Introduction 

my readers ask. On this point, too, it is not difficult to 
see our way. All the African colonies have at present bor- 
rowed smaller or larger sums from their respective mother- 
countries for the construction of railways, harbours, etc. l;or 
instance, the Belgian Congo has borrowed about lOO million 
marks French Equatorial Africa about 20 million marks, 
Angol'a about the same sum. We ought at the cone usion of 
peace to be able to insist that, in addition to the indemnities 
paid us in money, the colonies ceded to us should be given over 
absolutely free of debts and incumbrances. By this means we 
should have on the one hand the certainty of the ceded 
colonies paying their way, and on the other hand we might 
expect the annual revenue to yield such a surplus as would 
make it possible to raise a loan, immediately the colonies 
were handed over to the German Empire, for the purposes 
of defence. It ought to be easy to provide the interest on a 
defence-loan of from 50 to 100 million marks. For that sum 
of money a number of harbours might be fitted out as naval 
bases— ^. g., Dar-es-Salaam, the mouth of the German 
Cameroon estuary, the mouth of the Congo, a harbour on the 
coast of South-West Africa (perhaps Liideritz Bay). 

What results would follow from this erection of the Ger- 
man colonial harbours into points d'appui for the fleet? Tne 
whole coast of West Africa from the mouth of the Cross 
River to the mouth of the Orange River would be in German 
possession. If one remembers what great things were done by 
our Emden in the Indian Ocean, by the Karlsruhe in the At- 
lantic, without any naval base, without any possibility of 
replenishing their stores of munitions, foodstuffs and other 
kinds of equipment in any harbour, one begins to get some 
sort of idea what the fortification of half the Western coast 
of West Africa (sic) would mean for Germany and for Eng- 
land! As soon as the Suez Canal in another war is blocked 
against England by the Turks, the whole traffic between 
England and her colonies — India, Australia, and South Africa 
— will have to go round the Cape of Good Hope. But the 
whole maritime traffic round the Cape would then have to go 
past the coast of German Mittel-Afrika! What would the 
result be? It would be impossible for England any more to 
concentrate her whole fleet in the North Sea and threaten 
Germany. Far from that, England would be compelled to 
station a fairly large fleet in South Africa to safeguard her 
commerce. Ihat would mean no inconsiderable weakening of 
the naval fighting forces in European waters. 

The German colonies would not only [not] constitute a 
drag upon German sea-power— as is asserted by a good part 
of the German press— but would actually, as Dr. Solf, Secre- 



Introduction xxvii 

tary of State for the Colonies, has already explained in 
his addresses, furnish German sea-power with a valuable 
support.* 



7.— FREIHERR ALBRECHT VON RECHENBERG 

Freiherr Albrecht von Rechenberg, known as a former 
Governor of German East Africa, contributed an article, 
entitled '^Kriegs- und Friedenziele," to the monthly periodical 
Nord und Si'id (February, 1917). In the course of it he 
discusses the question of German colonies: — 



That the German Empire needs colonies has been so often 
shown, that it is unnecessary to go further into the reasons 
why — for the supply of raw materials, of the products of 
oversea countries, etc. All parties are agreed in this — that 
the German colonial empire cannot be abandoned. ... It 
will be best to confine ourselves to the question what colonial 
territory w^e ought to desire and what territory it is possible 
for us to obtain. 

A sufficient extent of land suitable for settlement is often 
stated to be the kind of colonial territory we should desire. 
This seems prima facie a sound proposition. The question, 
however, is whether such land is to be had. . . . Those re- 
gions which offer quite certainly the sum of conditions neces- 
sary for European colonization are already occupied by settled 
populations, which govern themselves and upon which we 
neither could impose, or want to impose, German supremacy. 

And if, on the one hand, available land for settlement is 
lacking, we, on the other hand, equally lack suitable German 
settlers. The people who cry out that we should acquire 
large territories for settlement, are thinking of times gone 
by, when the German peasant-farmer, who was unable to 
support himself from his plot of ground, made up his mind 
to emigrate and found a scope for his activity, mainly in 
America, to the profit of his new country. Conditions have 
changed since then. For a number of years now emigra- 
tion from Germany has been much more than counterbalanced 
by immigration into Germany. . . . 

Regrettable as it is, the fact remains that at the future 
peace there can be no question of our acquiring wide lands 

* The end of the article seems to have been hurriedly written. The 
last sentence in German is nonsense as it stands, but the above render- 
ing gives what is obviously its meaning. 



xxviii Introduction 

for settlement : there is no suitable land and we have no ag:ri- 
cultural population suitable to be settlers. 

Of the other regions which come into consideration, we 
must rule out all such as it would be difficult or impossible 
for us to hold in days to come, either because the native 
population would eventually, as they developed, threaten the 
colony in virtue of their numbers or their degree of civiliza- 
tion, or because there were neighbouring Powers whose in- 
fluence, in consequence of the local conditions, might jeop- 
ardize the existence of our colonies. 

New acquisitions on the coast of China would fall into 
the first category. It goes without saying that the opening-up 
and development of China will continue to take its course 
after the war, and that European Powers will have to par- 
ticipate in that process, through the persons of their subjects, 
if they do not want to leave everything to the^ Japanese. 
But it is most certainly irrational to hold colonial posses- 
sions on Chinese territory, where they must be felt by the 
Chinese as an encroachment upon their soil and the embodi- 
ment of a foreign supremacy, while all the time instructors 
and directors of industry are bringing the military resources 
of China up to the European standard. If the instructors do 
their business, the first use to which the Chinese Empire will 
apply its new means of power is sure to be the freeing of 
its territory from foreign rule — that is to say, it will deprive 
the very people who sent it instructors of their colonies in 
China. Germany has already had bitter experience in this 
line. We may remember how much Japan owes to German 
military instructors, and we have seen in this war how Japan 
repays the debt. The experiment does not tempt one to 
repeat it. 

Colonies in the South Pacific belong to the second category. 
The development of the Powers already established there will 
go forward. Australia, for instance, will grow stronger with 
the course of time— even if England has to relinquish her 
absolute command of the seas. Any colonies we might ac- 
quire in that region would be exposed to a menace which 
would grow greater, not less, with time. 

The present war has taught us what characteristics our 
future colonial domain must have, in order that it may be 
maintained even in time of war. It must be sufficiently exten- 
sive to be able by its own inherent strength to defend the 
main part of its territory — at any rate defend it till such 
time as the war, which decides its destiny, has itself been 
decided in other fields, in fields where the decision will be 
brought about by our Army and our Navy. 

The only German colony still maintaining itself against 



introduction xxix 

enemies superior in numbers is German East Africa. Ad- 
joining this is the Belgian Congo. On the supposition that 
Belgium — as we hope and as its population desires [!] — is 
partitioned between France and Germany, the Belgian Congo 
and the French Congo, including the districts of Chad, Shari, 
and Wadai, would be attached to the German domain. Our 
domain would further be completed by the acquisition of 
British East Africa_ and Uganda, in exchange for which 
Kiao-chou, New Guinea, and our possessions in the South 
Seas would have to be given up. This compact colonial 
domain would offer within itself sufficient securities for de- 
fence and development. Togoland would be left isolated, and 
would, it is true, see its prospects of further development thus 
cut off. It would be worth considering whether it would not 
be well to cede Togoland to England in exchange for Northern 
Rhodesia and Nyassaland, since these British possessions are, 
even as it is, hemmed in by non-British territory. As for the 
Portuguese colonies, the treaty would have to be re-affirmed, 
which Germany and Great Britain at a former moment con- 
cluded with regard to them. 

In this way Germany would have a colonial domain com- 
pact in itself, defensible and easily accessible on the West 
coast; the domain would offer an adequate field of activity 
to the German spirit of enterprise, and would thereby help to 
procure us the raw materials we lack — whether minerals or 
products of tropical agriculture. If by our administration we 
gain the sympathy of the natives, we can count upon them in 
the event of war — as has been seen in the case of East Africa 
Our colonial domain would have such an extent that it would 
not be in the power of our enemies to conquer it, even if for a 
period the colonies were thrown upon their own resources. 
Again, such a colonial scheme would altogether correspond 
with the German programme — territorial expansion tor the 
purpose of security only — and it would not impose upon our 
opponent any sacrifices which he would feel intolerable. That 
such a colonial domain would confront German colonial ad- 
ministration with new tasks can no more be questioned than 
that these tasks would often be difficult ones ; yet they are not 
incapable of achievement, neither do they demand any exces- 
sive financial outlay, provided we resolve to adjust the meas- 
ure of intensive administration to the amount of the resultant 
profit. 

8.— DAVIS TRIETSCH 

Trietsch is the author of a pamphlet, published in 1917, 
entitled Afrikanische Kriegsziele (African War- Aims). We 



XXX Introduction 

may conjecture that, unlike the writers already cited, he is 
a Pan-German, since another of his small books, Tatsachen 
und Ziifern, is published by the Pan-German firm of Lehmann, 
and warmly recommended and circulated by Pan-Germans. 
Although the principal exponents of Mittel-Afrika deny that 
Germany needs the things for which the Pan-Germans 
clamour in Europe, there is no reason why Pan-Germans 
should not regard an African Empire as one of the things 
which would be thrown in, as a matter of course, if their 
European aims were realized. Trietsch writes : — 



The nearer the peace negotiations seem to be, the more 
timely is it to get clear ideas, not only about possible or 
desirable changes of frontiers in Europe, but about the 
changes in territory overseas made necessary or attainable 
by the war. Discussions on this head have hitherto turned 
mainly upon the demand for a "Mittel-Afrika," as a parallel 
to the new Mittel-Enropa. The joining-up of the most impor- 
tant German colonies — whether in their .present shape or 
diminished or enlarged need not for the moment be discussed 
— by means of the intervening region, corresponding roughly 
with the present Belgian Congo State, would be a sine qua 
non. Then the immense Congo region, which little Belgium 
would be far too weak to develop properly, would be attached 
to that European colonial Power, which got far less than its 
rightful share in the partition of Africa. Then not only 
would Germany's principal colonies have gained a new terri- 
torial coherence, but their strategic situation and their facili- 
ties for communication from Ocean to Ocean would appear 
in quite a new light. Then a German Mittel-Afrika would 
enclose and round off the Mohammedan North, and help it 
to closer union with Turkey, the premier Power (Vormacht) 
of Islam,^ and with Turkey's political and military allies. 

By this Germany's position in the world would gain in 
essential strength of a particular kind. Even before, Ger- 
many's strength consisted in its being a State economically 
and politically compact, strongly centred upon its main posi- 
tion, whereas the other colonial Powers, in the event of any 
conflict, could always be hard-hit by blows dealt on outlying 
parts, far from the main seat of their strength. This war 
has shown that for a Power in Germanv's position the loss 
of Its colonies is no decisive blow, whilst for England or 



Introduction xxxi 

France it is unquestionable that grave unrest or disturbances 

in their subject oversea territories — or even their being threat- 
ened by Germany and her allies — would have changed the 
whole military situation of the mother-countries for the 
worse. . . . 

In future wars Germany, if only by using the new military 
weapons acquired and perfected in this war, would be able to 
threaten England's colonial dominion to a far greater ex- 
tent. The cruisings of the Emden off the coast of India have 
given an indication of the possibilities in this direction. Sup- 
posing Germany now, in rising to a new height of world- 
power, can succeed in rounding off and increasing its colonial 
territory, so changing a European compactness into a Europeo- 
African compactness, then the junction of Mittel-Europa with 
Mittel-Afrika by way of Turkey and Mohammedan North 
Africa would bring the third Mittel region, i. e., the Mediter- 
ranean [in German Mittelldndische Meer], to a degree one 
hardly could have hoped before, within the sphere of power of 
the group constituted by Germany and her allies. With a 
compactness extending now not only over one Continent, 
but over a great part of the globe, Germany could deal such 
blows to the world-wide interests and far-scattered colonies 
of her opponents, as would pre-eminently deter them from 
challenging her again. — (pp. 3-5.) 

This author lays great stress upon the Mohammedan 
element in Africa as a factor v^hich can be utilized to 
Germany's advantage: — 

From whatever standpoint we regard the new world- 
situation created by the German-Turkish alliance, it is of 
the greatest possible consequence that Turkey, as the premier 
Power of the whole Moslem world, has an importance reach- 
ing far beyond the limits of its territory and its popula- 
tion. . . . The truth that religious connexions are more im- 
portant in world-history than political is illustrated by the 
fact that most colonial ties carry in themselves from the 
outset the germ of their ultimate dissolution. The popu- 
lations of colonies . . . are bound sooner or later to 
shake off the foreign yoke, and he whose patience can 
equal that of the religious communities is certain to win in 
the end. 

These general considerations have especial applicability 
to Africa — the "most colonial" of the Continents ! Africa 
can be regarded as consisting of three main divisions — the 



xxxii Introduction 

Arabian or Arabianized North, including the Sudan, the black 
Central region, and the white Southern extremity. Of these 
three regions, the whole of the North and the northern part 
of the Centre may be regarded as already Mohammedan, and 
in addition a long strip of the coast stretching along the Indian 
Ocean southwards must be reckoned as belonging to Islam. The 
statistics and estimates— very defective, it is true, in the case 
of Africa— show the majority of the population as still heathen 
(according to Ritter, the total population is 150,000,000, out 
of which 80,000,000 are heathen, 60,000,000 Mohammedans, 
9,600,000 Christians, and 400,000 Jews), but all agree that, 
whilst heathenism is receding, the gain falls in far greater 
measure to Islam than to Christianity. . . . The gains of 
Christian missions are estimated at the most as so many tens 
of thousands a year, whilst the annual increase of the Moham- 
medan community is to be reckoned by millions. _ This was 
the state of the case even when Islam as a political Power 
seemed to be on the decline. How much more vigorous and 
rapid will the expansion of Islam in heathen Africa be, now 
that its premier Power, Turkey, has got itself included in the 
most mighty group of states in the world and has made vic- 
torious head against all its foes on all fronts! The result 
ought to be that we can even to-day look forward to an Africa 
nine-tenths Mohammedan, and it will be one of Germany's 
most important tasks in Africa to further energetically her 
political predominance alongside of the growing influence of 
Islam. No other means so effectual present themselves to stem 
the encroachments of England and France upon the Moham- 
medan domain in Africa. But if this policy is successful, 
then we have an altogether new world-situation with the most 
extraordinary prospects! — (pp. 10-12.) 

Trietsch sums up in conclusion the Mittel-Afrika 
scheme : — 

To found a big colonial Empire in Africa, reaching from 
the South-West to the South-East [sic, misprint for North- 
East?] and up as far as the Cameroons and Togo, bound 
into one by regions which were once French, Belgian, or 
(it may be) British — that must be our aim. It is a necessity 
for our independence in the matter of the supply of raw 
materials; it is no less so for our position on the seas. Such 
a realm, properly organized, would be self-maintaining, and 
could be administered somewhat after the pattern of the Brit- 
ish "Dominions." The pawns, which ought to bring it to 
us, we hold in Northern France and in Belgium. ... We 
might almost say that this factor in the terms of peace would 



Introduction xxxiii 

offer the strongest evidence that we were unconquerable.— 
(pp. 30-31.) 



9.— EMIL ZIMMERMANN 

During the last two years Emil Zimmermann has become 
the most industrious preacher of the Mittel-Afrika gospel. 
Articles from his pen on the subject have appeared in Das 
grossere Dentschland, the Pan-German weekly ; in Rohrbach's 
weekly, Deutsche Politik; in the Liberal weekly, the Euro- 
pdische Staats- und PVirtschafts-Z eitung ; and especially in the 
Preussische Jahrhiicher — to say nothing of articles contributed 
to the daily press. 

He himself wandered about a good deal in Africa before 
the war, through the rich tropical region upon which he now 
casts rapacious eyes. In 1910 he went through Rhodesia 
into the Congo State and from the Congo State into German 
East Africa. In 1912 he made a journey through the 
Cameroons, and together with Frau Zimmermann visited the 
French and the Belgian Congo. In 191 3 he went right across 
the Continent from the mouth of the Congo to Dar-es- 
Salaam. * 

Zimmermann's articles repeat, but with significant 
elaborations, all the stock arguments, which we have found 
brought forward by other writers — the need of Germany to- 
have a secure supply of tropical raw materials from its own 
territory, the value of Mittel-Afrika, as supplying military 
and naval bases from which the bands of the British Empire 

* An account of these journeys will be found in the Preussische 
Jahrbiicher for December, 1916, and January, 1917. Emil Zimmermann 
is not to be confounded with Alfred Zimmermann, who was a colonial 
attache in the Foreign Office service, and has written a standard his- 
tory of modern European colonization ; nor with Arthur Zimmermann, 
the late German Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; nor with Eugene 
Zimmermann, Director of the Scherl publishing firm and leading man 
on the Berliner Local- Anseiger; nor with Adolf Zimmermann, the war 
correspondent. 



xxxiv Introduction 

could be broken up, whenever Germany chose. On the latter 
topic he enlarges with edifying freedom:— 

For our present unfavourable position in the Far East 
England— apart from Japan— is chiefly responsible; the prin- 
cipal opponent of our expansion in the Pacific is Australia. 
But we shall never be able to exercise pressure upon Aus- 
traha from a base in the South Seas; we might very well do 
so from East Africa. Australia needs for its exports (min- 
erals, wool, meat, tallow, butter, cheese, wheat) an open road 
through the Indian Ocean. This road can be gravely menaced 
from East Africa. It is true Australian commerce might take 
the route round the Cape; but even on this route merchant 
ships would hardly be safe against attacks directed from East 
Africa. The policy therefore both of Australia and of India 
might be very strongly influenced by pressure from German 
Mittel-Afrika, and British policy, too, since England has as 
strong an interest in unimpeded commercial intercourse with 
India and Australia as India and Australia have in unimpeded 
intercourse with England. 

If we have a position of strength in Mittel-Afrika, with 
which India and Australia must reckon, then we can compel 
both of them to respect our wishes in the South Seas and in 
Eastern Asia, and we thereby drive the first wedge into the 
compact front of our opponents in Eastern Asia. 

We are confronted in Africa, too, with a multitude of 
enemies, but we can diminish their number by compelling 
them to cede great bits of Africa to us and to our allies. 
Besides that, we do not stand alone in the Black Continent. 
In the North-African Mohammedan we have a faithful ally, 
who in the present war has given notable proofs of his cour- 
age and bravery. By a well-directed policy we could attach 
the Mohammedans of Africa permanently to our side. 

It is therefore a comparatively easy matter to create a 
strong position for German power in Mittel-Africa — 
(Europdische Staats- und Wirtschafts-Zeitung, June 23, 
1917, p. 631.) 

Zimmermann argues against those who proclaim that, if 
Germany has a strong position in Europe, that is enough: — 

A Germany weak at home would, of course, not have any 
prestige abroad. But if one thing is certain, it is that the 
strongest position at home would not suffice by itself Tapan 

WHrK^'^'i/^""^.??^^^^^^ ^" E^^t^^" Asia; but Japan can 
hardly be called a World-Power. Its influence is quite small 
even in a region so near to it as the Indian Ocean. A very 



Introduction xxxv 

strong Germany, commanding the North Sea, would no doubt 
be able to prevent England from again closing the English 
Channel to it; it would have a free sea. But what would a 
free sea profit it against the antagonism of America and 
Japan, against the hostility of South Africa and Austra- 
lia? .. . 

The Great War determines the evolution of mankind for 
the next hundred years. If it makes Central Africa German, 
then fifty years hence it may well be that beside fifty millions 
of blacks there will be living 500,000 and more Germans. 
Then perhaps in German Africa an army of a million men 
will be ready to march, and the colony will have its own war- 
fleet, like Brazil. It will be a valuable ally for South America 
against North-American aggression; the United States, too, 
will have to reckon with a country so powerful. With this 
country, well-developed and well-furnished, as a basis, we 
shall have been able in the meantime to develop a stronger 
position in the South Seas as well. ... It would be a mistake 
to make England strong in Africa in return for British prom- 
ises to back us up in the Far East. An England strong in 
Africa commands the situation in South Europe, and could 
get on without us. But from Central Africa we should com- 
mand the British connexions with South Africa, with India 
and with Australia, and compel British policy to take account 
of us. The United States could not permanently thwart our 
interests in Eastern Asia and the South Seas, if a strong 
German Mittel-Afrika made its influence felt upon develop- 
ments in South America. . . . — (pp. 631-633.) 

With regard to Mittel-Europa--^\viS-Tvivkey, the scheme to 
which many ''Moderates" attach the first ir~portance, 
Zimmermann, the spokesman of the Mittel-Afrika school, 
takes the line that though, in combination with Mittel-Afrika, 
Mittel-Europa would be valuable, apart from Mittel-Afrika, 
it would profit Germany little. In the first place, the riches 
to be got out of the Turkish Empire, he argues, are not 
really as great as the more fervent enthusiasts for "Berlin-to- 
Bagdad" imagine : — 

I have never fallen into the error of over-estimating the 
potentialities of Nearer Asia. Mesopotamia, in particular, 
with its scanty population of a little over a million to 184,000 
square kilometres, never seemed to me the Promised Land 
which within a calculable time could even approximately sup- 
ply our demand for wool and vegetable oils. It is only under 



xxxvi Introduction 

British rule, supposing that Britain throws some five or six 
million Indians into the country and expends great sums in 
developing it, that Mesopotamia might within a generation 
become something like Egypt. Turkey could not develop it. 
Nor have we the kind of man-power at our disposal necessary 
for the achievement of such a task. — (Preussische Jahrbiicher, 
February, 1917, p. 329.) 

Zimmermann goes on to appeal to German geographical 
authorities and to the reports of Sir William Willcocks, to 
prove that the stories of the astonishing wealth of ancient 
Babylonia are greatly exaggerated. On the basis of Will- 
cocks's plans, one may calculate that the area probably culti- 
vated in antiquity, 30,000 square kilometres — the maximum 
v^hich the available volume of v^ater would irrigate — would 
take twenty- four years to reclaim and cost 1,200,000,000 
marks (i6o,ooo,ooo). 

In the second place, Zimmermann argues, without a 
German Mittel-Afrika to protect its flank, a German Turkey 
could not defend itself : — 



German East Africa, whose magnificent resistance has had 
far-reaching effects upon the whole of African Mohammedan- 
ism, has shown itself to be the real rampart of Nearer Asia. 
The whole truth will not come out till after the war ; but even 
to-day we can reckon approximately what an immense volume 
of force our East-African colonial troops, in alliance with the 
Mohammedan peoples, have diverted to Africa. If it was 
the object of the British (and Russians), as is now proved, 
to break up Turkey-in-Asia, it was needful that North Africa 
should be absolutely tranquil before any attack on Syria and 
Palestine from the Suez Canal could take place. — {Preussische 
Jahrbiicher, May, 1917, p. 315.) 

It is not too much to say that Africa has saved Turkey- 
in-Asia. And if Turkey now desires, no less than we our- 
selves do, a durable peace, which may guarantee it a long 
period of quiet work, we cannot fail to see that the restora- 
tion of the status quo ante in Africa is absolutely the mini- 
mum condition. Without adequate flank protection in Africa 
Asiatic Turkey cannot survive. Without this protection all 
the money which we have advanced to Turkey during the war 
will be lost. [The last sentence in spaced type in the origi- 
nal.]— (p. 317.) 



Introduction xxxvii 

One cannot see how Mittel-Europa by itself would be the 
step forwards which our own evolution and the course of the 
world before the war make it incumbent upon us to take. 
The end in view was clear: to supplement our domestic re- 
sources by a great productive economic field in the tropics 
which was our very own. And Mittel-Europa has a value 
only if it helps us to attain this end by making it easier for 
us to hold fast our tropical dependencies in future world- 
storms. We shall never be able to render unselfish (sic) 
service to Bulgaria and the Turkish Empire unless these 
countries form a bridge to a tropical region of economic value, 
binding that region to us by connexions which it would be 
impossible for England to break. (As for the "freedom of 
the seas," that is not worth the drop of ink used to write 
the phrase). . . . — (Das grossere Deutschland, July 22, 
1916.) 

The most important decisions of the Great War have 
taken place in the East. In that direction we have attained 
almost the whole of our aims — the enlargement of Mittel- 
Europa, the clearing of all Russian influence out of the 
Balkans, the securing of our connexions with Turkey, with 
the Turkish and Arab world. But Islam is powerful in Africa 
as well; it constitutes the bridge to our chief colonies, the 
Cameroons and German East Africa, which have stood like 
stubborn corner-pillars in the world-storm. Clearer and ever 
clearer the great thought stands out : Mittel-Europa and 
Mittel-Afrika with the Turkish and Arab zvorld as the con- 
necting bridge between them. ... 

It was a great mistake that the old lines of communica- 
tion between Central Europe and the Orient were allowed 
to pass completely out of use and oceanic navigation came 
to dominate men's minds exclusively. This changed the Medi- 
terranean, which, till the end of the Middle Ages, had been 
the connecting road between Europe, the Near East, and 
North Africa, into a barrier "of separation. Certainly the 
weakness and the internal divisions of Central Europe, which 
prevented any effective influence upon the destinies of North 
Africa, were partly responsible; and this rich land fell into 
decay. 

When a strong Mittel-Europa and a promising Mittel- 
Afrikh are there, the Mediterranean can no longer be under 
the predominant influence of the Western Powers; then North 
Africa is bound to rise rapidly in importance. For Mittel- 
Europa the way to Lake Chad and the interior of Africa goes 
across the Mediterranean Sea and through Tripoli. We are 
always talking about the great Berlin-Constantinople-Basra 
route; but we ought to bear in mind that the line from 
Berlin to Lake Chad through Tripoli is not any longer. 
From Berlin, again, the way through Vienna, Ragusa, and 



xxxviii Introduction 

Benghazi in North Africa to the north end of Lake Tan- 
ganyika is no longer than the way from Moscow to Lake 

Baikal 

If to-day anyone says in Berlin: "I am off on a journey 
to Lake Tanganyika !" he is looked upon as a curiosity, so 
immensely far away to ordinary German thinking is the lake 
in the interior of Africa. But in Russia a journey from 
Petersburg to Irkutsk on Lake Baikal does not presumably 
appear anything extraordinary. It takes from six to seven 

days. , . , 

To-day the interior of Africa, even the comparatively near 
Sudan, seems to us so remote because we are accustomed to 
have our gaze riveted on the sea, to make long sea-voyages to 
the African coast and thence penetrate into the interior; the 
consciousness that a shorter way exists, a way already much 
frequented in grey antiquity, we have lost. But, when we 
have once secured a flourishing Mittel-Afrika, the conscious- 
ness might revive. Why not? 

It seems to me that history will lead us by another way 
than that which for decades past has been in the mind of 
our German politicians. We shall not go by the Bagdad 
railway to the Far East, in order to seek there the founda- 
tion for a Greater Germany; we shall find the foundation 
for it in Mittel-Afrika and in its connexion with the Arab 
and Turkish world. . . . 

If, fifty years hence, German Mittel-Afrika contains, to- 
gether with fifty million negroes, five hundred thousand Ger- 
mans, if great cities with a rich life have grown up on Lake 
Chad, on the Congo, on Lake Tanganyika, then it will no 
longer be anything strange for a Berlin mercantile firm to 
give orders to its traveller at the beginning of September: 
"Pack up your box of samples, take the Congo express, and 
attend the autumn fair at Wilhelmstadt" (as Stanleyville will 
then be called) ; "we shall expect to receive your orders in 
three to four weeks. There will then be time to execute 
them so that the goods may be delivered at their destination 
in Africa by the beginning of December" ! 

It will be a seven days' journey from Berlin to the Congo 
or to Lake Tanganyika. Express traffic will go across the 
Mediterranean and North Africa; sea-borne traffic will go 
from the ports on the North Sea by ship along the old sea- 
routes. A new flourishing world will have grown up round 
the Mediterranean. . . .—(Preiissische Jahrbiicher, February, 
1917, PP- 335-337-) 

Zimmermann notices in one place the proposal made in 
England that, instead of Germany being given back her 



Introduction xxxix 

African colonies, all "colonial territory all over the world 
should be internationalized." This proposal has, one gathers, 
been supported by Sir Harry Johnston in the interests of the 
black races. Zimmermann is very angry with Sir Harry:— 

It is mere dishonesty and lown-down hypocrisy (nieder- 
trdchtige Heuchelci) when to-day Sir Johnston raises his 
voice for the liberation of the Hottentots, Ovambo and Bantu 
negroes from German rule. And when one reads the wilder- 
ness of lies, hypocrisies, distortions, and utter misunderstand- 
ing of the actual situation, which English and American states- 
men exhibit in speech and writing, one is almost driven to 
despair of such people having any capacity left to recognize 
the vital needs of their own countries, let alone those of 
enemy countries. — (Europdische Staats- und IVirtschafts- 
Zeitung, October 6, 1917, p. 948.) 

With regard to the internationalization of Central 
Africa : — 

Sir Harry Johnston and his set must not expect that in 
Germany one single person in his senses (auch nur ein vcrniin- 
ftige Mensch) will entertain such a notion. As for the per- 
mission to work alongside of others in Central Africa — no 
thank you (bedanken wir uns bestcns). As things now are, 
neither an internationalization of all colonial territories nor 
the famous* "freedom of the seas" are likely to help us much. 



One argument Zimmermann uses, in order to intimidate 
Great Britain and America by the prospect of the conse- 
quences for themselves, if they prevent the creation of 
Mittel-Afrika: — 

Suppose the Anglo-Saxons succeeded in blocking our way 
to oversea possessions, the result would be that a process 
would begin in Europe, which would make Mittel-Europa find 
its future America in the East, the South-East and Nearer 
Asia. America would then lose the greater part of its im- 
migrants and forfeit an enormous part of its power of re- 
sistance to the yellow race. Very soon the American West 
would become a field for yellow colonization. ... 

Nothing worse could happen to Australia, South Africa 
and America than the exclusion of Central-European man 



xl Introduction 

from oversea regions. — (Europdische Staats- und Wirtschafts^ 
Zeitung, October 6, 1917,?- 948.) 

Since Zimmermann has already explained that if Mittel- 
Afrika does come about, it will have the trade communica- 
tions of Australia and South Africa at its mercy, the prospect 
for these countries would seem pretty gloomy either way! 
They might not impossibly prefer to risk the consequences of 
Mittel-Afrika's being prevented. The same may be said of 
the United States, since Zimmermann has indicated that one 
of the advantages of Mittel-Afrika is that it will be able to 
drive North-American influence out of South America. This 
point, indicated in an article already quoted, he developed at 
large in later articles, and in this book : — 



The interests of South America, especially of the so- 
called A.B.C. States [Argentina, Brazil, Chile], are by no 
means identical with those of the United States. 

South America can only develop vigorously if it continues 
to draw to itself a strong stream of immigration; Brazil and 
Argentina especially are making great efforts to attract 
men. They are in this way strong rivals of the United 
States, which, without the regular influx of immigrants, 
cannot keep up the rapid rate of their development. For 
the last three years the stream of immigration into America 
has almost run dry; even the United States are hungry for 
men. They will try their hardest to draw to themselves 
in the near future the peoples now allied to them — Italians, 
Serbs, Belgians — so that not many will be left over for South 
America. All the more welcome will it be to states like 
Brazil and Argentina, if they are able to get men by our 
means, and we ought to commence an agitation on the grand 
scale after the war for inducing the North-American Germans 
to emigrate — so far as they do not betake themselves to the 
new German colonial Empire — to South America. We must 
do this on condition that the South Americans adopt a policy 
favourable to us in the matter of raw materials. , . . 

For the Anglo-Saxons cannot keep South America per- 
manently within their sphere of influence, because the in- 
terests of the two sides are too divergent, and we have it 
in our power to accentuate considerably the antagonism be- 
tween North and South America after the war by directing 
the stream of German emigration on a definite plan. 



Introduction xli 

The aim of a far-seeing policy must accordingly be to 
turn systematically to account, as required by world-wide 
German economic and political interests, the unrest which, 
after the conclusion of peace, will seize great multitudes 
of the Germans abroad— in Australia, South Africa, North 
America, Russia— and so prevent our enemies' obtaining 
advantage over us in getting control of the cheap fields 
of supply. The Anglo-Saxon world is systematically work- 
ing, as its straining after China and South America shows, 
to bar our access to the cheap fields of supply, either by 
bringing about an agreement which will allow us only to 
purchase raw materials at increased rates or by compelling 
all the states which adhere to the Anglo-Saxon bloc to sell 
raw materials, tropical foodstuffs and tropical luxuries to 
Germany by way of English or North-American ports ex- 
clusively. . . . 

The most important condition in our peace-terms must 
be the breaking up of this World-Syndicate for the supply 
of raw materials. . . . 

The foundation for an independent German world-wide 
economic system can only be a territory of our own amon^ 
the cheap fields of supply, a big German colonial Empire, 
and, as things are, the main part of this Empire must be 
situated in Central Africa. — (Preussische Jahrbucher, July, 

1917, PP- 135-138.) 

The idea of a German Mittel-Afrika is so important, not 
because Central Africa would be able immediately to deliver 
us any considerable quantity of raw materials, but because 
it gives occasion to the sifting of spirits in foreign countries 
as well. The Anglo-Saxon opposition will lose strength as 
soon as the Anglo-Saxons realize that our purpose is not 
to press them hard in their own colonial territories; and, 
above all else, a deep cleavage will immediately come to 
exist between North and South and Central America. . . . 

The interests of these countries are by no means in 
accord. Especially they stand as rivals to each other in 
the struggle to attract immigrants. . . . We have it in our 
power to intervene energetically in favour of South America. 
We and our allies must— always supposing that Central and 
South America pursue a policy favourable to us in the 
matter of raw materials— turn to full account the great un- 
rest which has seized our kinsmen in North America and 
the Germans in South Africa and Australia, by influencing 
the migration of Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Bulgarians 
and Turks overseas. They must be urged to go to South 
and Central America, except in so far as they are disposed 
to betake themselves to Germany or the German colonies 
or the countries allied with us. By this means we shall draw 
the Central and South American States into our alliance and 



xlii Introduction 

break their connection with the Anglo-Saxons, with whom 
they have practically no economic interests in common. The 
principal Anglo-Saxon Powers, possessing as they do them- 
selves large territories which supply raw materials, have no 
interest in the development of Central and South America. 
These States, on the other hand, and the Empires of Central 
Europe supplement each other admirably. 

The combination Mittel-Europa, Nearer Asia, Mittel- 
Afrika, Central and South America — that is what we must 
strive to bring about. — (Prenssische Jahrhucher, August, 1917, 
pp. 294-295.) 

To the November number of the Preussische Jahrhiicher 
last year (1917) Emil Zimmermann contributes an articie 
pitched in quite a different key. The variation is not without 
its humorous quality. We have seen him in former articles 
display, with exultation, how Mittel-Afrika would give 
Germany an unassailable position from which it could, when- 
ever it chose, break up the bands of the British Common 
wealth, dominate the Mediterranean and the Near East, and 
strengthen South America against North America. Then 
suddenly he discovers that one of his recent articles has been 
read with interest over the frontiers. A leading article in 
The Times of September 3, 191 7, had quoted from his article 
in the August number of the Preussische Jahrhiicher, and had 
seemed to detect in it a certain unfriendly intention. Instantly 
Zimmermann becomes the inoffensive, peaceful, misjudged, 
oppressed German. Mittel-Afrika is no longer an armed 
and menacing fortress, but a paradise of quiet work and 
pastoral refreshment. 

It is all very well (so w€ are given to understand) to 
accuse the Germans of greed because they want to get pos- 
session of the Congo State, but if the Germans do not take 
it, it is likely to be seized by another Power— Great Britain 
or the United States ! 

When in the year 1913 I was travelling in the Belgian 
Congo, I came across English agents everywhere, and the 



Introduction xliii 

American missions were so numerous and had such abundant 
means at their disposal, that they were able to have their 
own big river-steamers. On the steamer which carried me 
from Europe to the mouth of the Congo, an American mis- 
sionary was one of my fellow-travellers, and he had travel- 
ling with him a simple sort of a man, one Mr. Hillhouse. "An 
artizan attached to the Mission" {Missionshandwerker) , the 
missionary described him to me. Information as to this 
so-called "artizan" was given to the Belgian Chamber by 
the Minister for the Colonies, Renkin, on March ii, 1914. 
An agriculturist (Landwirt) from Kentucky, he stated, named 
Hillhouse, had, by the instrumentality of the Presbyterian 
Mission at Kasai, started the cultivation of fruit trees, cot- 
ton and sugar-cane, and live-stock farming, and he intended 
to induce a number of married farmers from Kentucky to join 
him. 

So already in 1913 the United States were beginning, 
through the agency of the Presbyterian Mission, to colonize 
the Belgian Congo with American farmers ! Now let us 
suppose Germany fails to get possession of the Belgian 
Congo. In that case, Belgium itself is done with (auch 
erledigt), because Germany will in that case refuse to give 
it up. Then the Belgian Congo is without an owner. Of 
course, England will then lay claim to it. Or can it be that 
Herr Wilson has his eye on it? 

/ ask the Latin Republics of South and Central America, 
I ask the Bra::ilians, what their future is likely to be, if 
the English dominate the zvhole of South and Central America, 
or if Mittel-Afrika becomes a colony of the United States? 

The feelings which came to me on the wide steppes of 
Central Africa must awake in thousands of German hearts, 
and the thousand soul-forces in the German must find full 
scope in the broad free New Germany, and beget a new 
spirit in a new generation, steeped in the feeling of large 
spaces — a spirit which will react fruitfully upon the old 
Germany. 

Of course, this new German stock must not be allowed to 
wither away again. It must be able to grow in quiet and in 
peace. For that reason Mittel-Afrika must be strong. . . . 
It is wretched nonsense, when The Times talks as if this 
idea of Mittel-Afrika were suggested by a policy of Power 
(Machtpolitik), "whatever may be the garb it wears for the 
moment." . . . 

The Times cannot understand that there are hearts beat- 
ing in Germany, whose dream is a great New Germany, the 
land of freedom over the seas, the Garden of Eden that 
beckons to all that is German all over the earth, all that 
travails and is heavy-laden, whose spirit has been broken m 



xliv Introduction 

this unhappy world-catastrophe by the persecuting rage of the 
English and the North-Americans. 

In a great German Mittel-Afrika, where a thousand tasks 
wait for accomplishment, there can he no room for thoughts 
■ of conquest and world-dominion. . . . — (Preussische Jahr- 
biicher, November, 1917, pp. 293-299.) 

This alternation in Emil Zimmermann between schemes 
of far-reaching mastery and the mood of self-pity and injured 
innocence is something which those who study the recent 
literature of German Weltpolitik are likely to recognize as 
familiar. It is characteristic of the emotional German, who 
is disposed always to look at himself in a melodramatic light — 
either as trampling down the earth like the invincible hero 
of a saga, or as a pathetic figure of simple honesty ill-used by 
a malignant world. It probably does not in most cases denote 
any conscious duplicity. Only it is astonishing to outsiders. 
Anyone, for instance who having read the last sentence 
quoted from Zimmermann's November article in the 
Preussische JahrbUcher turns back to read the article which 
he contributed in June to the Europ'dische Staais- und Wirt- 
schafts-Zeitung, and from which extracts are given above 
on pages xxxiii — xxxv, is likely to find the comparison 
sufficiently remarkable. 

10.— DR. WILHELM SOLF 

The German Government is, of course, not bound by the 
statements of any of the writers we have passed in review; 
the writers are all unofficial, although some of them are men 
of high standing and influence, as writers on public affairs, in 
Germany. It is, therefore, important to see how far the 
Mittel-Afrika scheme is endorsed by the German Govern- 
ment. The authoritative exponent of the views of the 
Government is Dr. Wilhelm Solf, Secretary of State for the 
Colonies. Dr. Solf is himself a scholar, whose studies earlier 



Introduction xlv 

in life lay in the field of Sanskrit and Indian languages. 
After holding an official post for some time in Calcutta, he 
was appointed Governor of German Samoa in 1900, and 
has first-hand experience of colonial administration. 

Dr. Solf has made various speeches during the war which 
may be taken as revealing the mind of the Government. So 
far as his manner goes, he is strikingly temperate and 
reasonable, and only passes into polemical asperity, where 
he is concerned to rebut English allegations. ''The under- 
lying tone of my address can be only deep indignation and 
fierce anger at the latest pronouncements of British states- 
men," he said, when speaking at Leipzig in June, 19 17. 

When we examine the substance of Dr. Solf's utterances, 
they cannot be construed in any sense except one which 
endorses the Mittel-Afrika plan. He seems to avoid using 
the term Mittel-Afrika; he does not specify circumstantially, 
as the unofficial writers do, the regions which must be taken 
to form the new German African Empire. But he advances 
the same propositions, which the unofficial writers put forward 
as proving the necessity of their Mittel-Afrika; he lays 
down their premises, and it is therefore natural to suppose 
that he draws, if he does not enunciate, their conclusion. 

In the first place, Dr. Solf is quite clear that when people 
on our side talk about ''giving back" Germany her colonies, 
meaning the restoration of the territorial frontiers in Africa 
as they were before the war, they are talking nonsense. 
Germany, he says emphatically, can never be satisfied with 
the territorial partition which existed before the war. Africa 
must be re-divided up and portions allotted according to the 
size of the mother-countries and the amount of territory they 
have already elsewhere. On this principle, Germany would 
get a great deal more, and Belgium and Great Britain a great 
deal less. 



xlvi Introduction 

Gentlemen, the position of Africa has changed astonish- 
ingly during the last decades both fropi the political, and 
from the economic, point of view. Africa is no longer the 
Black Continent, no longer the unexplored world with a be- 
wildering multitude of dark possibilities. To-day it is_ a 
foreland of Europe, with appreciable present values. Africa 
will play a part of rapidly growing significance in the evolu- 
tion of the globe. The increasing demand for raw materials, 
and before long the anxiety to find a market for manufactured 
articles, will lead to an intenser competition, in order to 
tap the' African sources of supply. The existing partition of 
Africa amongst the European colonizing states is the result of 
a comparatively recent development, in which, alongside of 
antiquated pretensions to sovereignty, more or less accidental 
events have been the determining factors. . . . There has been 
no question of an organic process. No wonder that the 
present partition should to a large extent lack any inherent 
justification! We see states in possession of gigantic areas, 
eighty times the size of the mother-country, which they are 
incapable of developing from a deficiency of men and means — 
at any rate incapable of developing, as civilized mankind re- 
quires. This applies to Belgium, France and Portugal. Great 
Britain, which has already incorporated in its Empire im- 
mense tracts in other continents, has known how to secure 
for itself an important share of Africa, a share approaching 
that of France. On the other hand, we Germans see our- 
selves confined to territories which are considerably smaller 
and which are far-scattered. He who desires a durable peace, 
a peace of just contentment, cannot wish the present partition 
of territory in Africa to be maintained, since it in no wise 
corresponds either with the colonizing capabilities or with the 
relative strength of the nations concerned. — (Address to the 
German Colonial Society in Berlin on December 21, 1917, 
reprinted in Deutsche Politik for December 28, 1917.) 

As for the suggestion of "internationalization," Dr. Solf 
expresses himself as follov^s : — 

The idea of a complete internationalization of the tropical 
regions with a joint administration by the European pro- 
tecting states is propagated by certain philanthropic circles 
in England. The most emphatic opponents of such an in- 
ternationalization are likely to arise in England itself. But, 
quite apart from that, an organization of this kind would 
be feasible, only if it were supported by a feeling of solidarity 
in the European states. Such a feeling of solidarity will no 
doubt arise in the form of an aspiration out of the ruins of 
this war, indeed, be established as a fundamental demand of 



Introduction xlvii 

the new spirit in international compacts; but before one can 
lay such a stupendous task as that of ruling oversea terri- 
tories in harmonious co-operation upon the belligerents of 
to-day— one might say, upon the whole of Europe, as it is 
to-day— the international consciousness will have ' to have 
been developed and confirmed in Europe by the actual prac- 
tice of international dealings. We must therefore hold fast 
to the principle which has hitherto prevailed in colonization— a 
partition of the tropical -countries amongst the civilized 
European states. In the treaty of peace there can only be 
the question of a fresh partition. 

Germany must have her colonial Empire, Dr. Solf insists, 
not because she needs a field for emigration — she has no 
surplus population — but because she needs raw materials: — 

We — I mean ourselves and all the European states — are 
not likely to have any superfluity of enterprising young 
men to settle in Africa — quite apart from the question, still 
undecided, how far Africa is colonizable by Mediterranean 
man. But exhausted Europe will have an immense hunger 
for the products of the tropics. 

Again, Dr. Solf lays stress, just as the unofficial exponents 
of Mfttel-Afrika do, upon the necessity of a continuous 
empire instead of the former detached territories and upon 
the possibility of making a continuous area practically 
unassailable if it is large enough : — 

Have not our colonies, with such military resources as 
they had, displayed a resistance of which we may well be 
proud, and that under the most unfavourable conditions 
conceivable? Have not the Cameroons and German South- 
West Africa been occupied by the enemy for no other 
reason than that the war has been protracted beyond every 
expectation ? Is not German East Africa holding out even 
to-day against superior forces assailing it from all sides? 
In view of these facts, we have every right to hope that 
we shall make our dependencies secure against all possible 
attacks in the future, if we lay to heart the lessons of the 
war. Just as the war has shown that the solid block of 
Mittel-Europa is a match for any military coalition, so the 
war has taught us that in the tropics, too, the power of 
military resistance and the capacity for self-maintenance is 



xlviii Introduction 

in direct proportion to the size of the continuous area. Just 
as at home we make it a leading consideration to shape our 
future frontiers in such a way that we need no longer 
fear any hostile attack, so we shall have to bear this con- 
sideration in mind when we re-shape our colonial possessions. 
If at the conclusion of peace we can draw the frontiers 
of our colonies in such a way that we acquire compact 
territories, less exposed to attack from many sides, if we 
turn to account the experiences of naval warfare gained 
in these years in order to safeguard our oversea possessions, 
no less than the home-lands, and make their coasts strong for 
defence, if we elaborate a legal system upon which a closer 
organization of the white population can be based, if we 
raise the numbers of the troops, white and coloured, main- 
tained on a peace-footing (erhohcn wir die Fricdensstdrke der 
weissen iind farbigen Truppen), if we institute a well-thought- 
out system of supplies, with great stores of arms, ammunition, 
clothing and miscellaneous articles of equipment, as well as 
of foodstuffs and medical requirements, if we develop com- 
munications of all kinds within the colonies and wireless con- 
nexions with the home-country, then we need not in any 
future war look forward to the certainty of losing our 
colonies over again, but rather to the possibility, at worst, of a 
temporary separation. — (Speech made in the summer of 1916, 
reprinted under the title of Die Lehren des Weltkrie^es fiir 
unsere Kolonialpolitik, in Jackh's series Der deutsche Krieg.) 



Dr. Solf further agrees with the exponents of Mittel- 
Afrika in seeing the future German African Empire as a 
means for increasing Germany's power on the globe, and he 
indicates, as they do, how valuable its harbours might be, if 
turned into naval bases : — 

The motive which prompted us in the first instance to 
acquire our colonies was not the desire for power. But 
during the war various facts have emerged, which make 
the contmuance and elaboration of a colonial policy a neces- 
sity for useven from the consideration of power In this 
connexion I will only indicate, as a question of prime im- 
portance, the creation of naval bases. The inestimable value 
which such bases would have for German sea-power was 
generally recognized even before the war. But to discuss that 
matter lies outside my official province.— (L>t> Lehren des 
vVeltkneges, p. 19.) 



Introduction xlix 

What is all this except to adopt the Mittel-Afrika scheme 
in all its essentials, even in those most calculated to alarm 
British statesmen? 

The German Government is evidently determined to come 
to the Peace Congress w^ell equipped with the fullest 
data as to Central Africa. We read in the Somalistische 
Monatshefte (February 5, 1918) : — 

Paul Sprigade and Max Moisel, the expert map-makers, 
have begun, by command of the Imperial Colonial Office, 
to elaborate a new series of sheets covering Mittel-Afrika. 
Of this imposing work, on the scale of i : 2,000,000, the two 
sheets covering the Eastern Sudan have now been issued 
by Dietrich Reimer in Berlin. They are admirable in every 
respect. With the most conscientious thoroughness they 
have laid every accessible source under contribution — esp- 
cially the official French, British, German and Belgian maps, 
as well as the publications of unofficial investigators, and 
may well bring the knowledge of these regions a good step 
forwards. ... At the coming peace negotiations the geog- 
raphy of Mittel-Afrika will play a principal part. 

11.— "DEUTSCHE WELTPOLITIK UND KEIN KRIEG" 

The utterances of Dr. Solf w^ould by themselves suffice to 
prove that the scheme of Mittel-Afrika is not merely the 
dream of a group of private individuals, but a project which 
has behind it the deliberate will of the German Government. 
Such a conclusion is confirmed by further evidence. From 
this we may gather that the scheme was not first adopted by 
the German Government in the heat of the world-war, but 
represents a purpose of old standing. It was in pursuance of 
such a purpose that the German Government before tlie war 
had entered upon negotiations with the British Government, 
which had almost succeeded in getting the British Govern- 
ment to agree to arrangements calculated to bring German 
Mittel-Afrika about, automatically as it were, in process of 
time. For in those days there was a very general disposition 



1 Introduction 

among British statesmen to give all reasonable gratification 
to the German desire for a place among the colonizing 
Powers. Dr. Solf alluded to these transactions in his 
Leipzig speech of June, 1917: — 

In the time before the war, clearly recognizing the im- 
portance of continuous colonial territories for the safety of 
the German nation, we had made far-reaching preparations, 
in order that by peaceful understanding and agreement 
we might shape our colonial possessions in a way correspond- 
ing to the most urgent colonial necessities. . . ." 

For a long time it has been an open secret, even in 
England, that even before the war we had plans for making 
a united whole of our African possessions by means of peace- 
ful arrangements. 

In this connexion, especial interest attaches now to a 
little book which appeared in 191 3, to expound this very 
policy, and which was entitled Deutsche Weltpolitik und 
kein Krieg {German World-Policy and No War). The 
importance of this book is that it is declared by common 
report in Germany to have emanated from the German 
Embassy in London, It is even attributed by many to 
Kiihlmann himself. Whether he actually wrote it seems 
doubtful, but there is no reason to doubt that in its main 
purport it reflects his views. We may infer that the scheme 
of Mittel-Afrika, as presented in 191 7, largely coincides with 
the project which was favoured in 191 3 by the man who is 
now Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the German 
Empire. 

The Pan-German writer, Count Reventlow, recognized in 
1916, when Dr. Solf began to lecture on Germany's colonial 
aims, that his programme practically resumed that of the 
well-known anonymous pamphlet {Deutsche Tageszeitung, 
May 20, 1916). 

When the pamphlet was written, it would not have been 
possible to represent the immediate acquisition of the Belgian 



Introduction li 

and Portuguese territories in Africa as a policy essentially 
pacific. The author's proposal was that Germany should in 
the first instance penetrate these regions economically on a 
friendly understanding with the Belgians and the Portuguese. 

No man of intelligence can suppose that we would wish 
to despoil Belgium and Portugal of their colonial posses- 
sions. But it is undeniable that neither Portugal nor Bel- 
gium has the requisite means and resources for properly 
developing its African possessions in an economic sense. . . . 
Since Portugal is thus reduced to require the collaboration 
of foreign nations in order to make anything of its colonies, 
the question is, What nation is to be the one to collaborate? 
In our opinion Germany has the most legitimate claims and 
the most favourable prospects. . . . Now if we were to em- 
ploy a considerable proportion of our economic energy — with 
the consent, of course, of the Portuguese Government — in 
developing the Portuguese colonies, it would be on the 
supposition that this labour was not to be lost to our nation, 
as the work of German culture in the United States and 
in South America is lost. In the event of Portugal's coming 
later on to the conclusion that it would be profitable for it 
to dispose of its colonies, we should need to have secured 
to us a first claim upon them. For this an understanding 
with the other European Powers is even more necessary for 
us than an understanding with Portugal. But we have no 
reason to expect that England would oppose such claims on 
the part of Germany. As we have already pointed out 
more than once. Sir Edward Grey declared in his speech in 
Parliament of November ^y, 191 1, that England did not re- 
gard Central Africa as belonging to her sphere of interest. 
. . . We have every right to count upon England's good 
will. . . . 

Next to the political considerations, we must look at 
the strategical ones which would bear upon the question of a 
colonial enterprise in Central Africa. We have emphasized 
that, so far as we can see, we ought not to contemplate a 
direct acquisition of territory in Central Africa in the near 
future. But since Portugal would be quite incapable of 
defending its possessions against the attack of a Great 
Power, the case might occur of our havmg to defend the 
economic interests we had created— all the more, smce at a 
more distant future the possibility of a formal acquisition 
might present itself. . . . 



lii Introduction 

There is no strong military Power in Central Africa; in- 
deed, no territorial Power at all, which might become a 
danger to us. In the neighbouring foreign colonies only 
relatively small colonial forces are stationed, which could 
never act effectively over such immense areas. The militia 
of the South African Union constitute indeed an excellent 
force for the defence of the country itself, but would not 
lend themselves in anything like the same degree to purposes 
of attack or conquest. We should be absolutely safe agamst 
attacks from European Powers by land. As for attacks by 
sea, the strongest enemy fleet could as little conquer an 
African colony as an African colonial force could. Besides, 
the conditions of a naval war in the open Ocean are rnuch 
more favourable to us than those of a war in the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. ... As soon as we have got clear of the North 
Sea and the English Channel, we have the free Ocean before 
us. . . . The English twenty-five years ago recognized quite 
clearly that they would have to abandon all commercial traf- 
fic, as well as the regular transport of troops to India, by 
the Suez Canal, and fall back upon the old route round the 
Cape, if ever a maritime war broke out in Mediterranean 
waters. ... 

From the point of view of international law, the creation 
of large German economic interests in foreign colonies might 
appear an anomaly; but this anomaly has become a regular 
feature of modern colonial policy. [Here the author gives 
the instances of Austria in Bosnia, England in Egypt, France 
in Morocco, Russia and England in Persia.] The experience 
of modern colonial policy teaches that the point to which 
the chief importance should be attached in the first instance 
is to get assured possession by diplomatic methods of certain 
spheres of economic interest to start with, and then effect 
economic penetration. The rest will come of itself. . . . 

One of the first considerations would be to develop the 
lines of communication. 

It is not part of our present purpose to discuss the princi- 
ples which ought to guide us in the matter of communica- 
tions and railways in Central Africa. We will confine our- 
selves to pointing out this single fundamental principle : From 
the point of view of ways and communications the whole of 
Central Africa must be treated as a single area. All projects 
must start with this principle. If we want to pursue a 
parochial policy in Africa, we shall only end by arresting 
economic development, and, in the long run, we shall have in- 
curred heavier expenditure. But if we want to inaugurate 
in Central Africa a policy on the grand scale with regard to 
communications, we must likewise secure the inclusion of the 
Belgian Congo within the future system, and for this pur- 
pose we must try to obtain the consent of Belgium. ... We 



Introduction liii 

have reason to hope that Belgium, by its new poHcy of 
reforms, will now repair the mistakes and the crimes of the 
past. Nevertheless, it appears doubtful whether the Belgian 
people IS able and willing to devote the large sums of money 
necessary to transform the Belgian Congo into a flourishing 
colony. . . . Another difficulty lies in the fact that Belgium is 
hard put to it to recruit its present body of officials, and, in 
particular, to find individuals of a better sort than those em- 
ployed since the Leopold regime. . . . 

In certain anti-German organs, the idea has sometimes been 
propagated that Germany cherishes secret designs on the Bel- 
gian colony ! Against such suggestions the most vigorous 
protest must be made. Germany and Belgium have be- 
come neighbours at more than one point in Central Africa, 
and both sides recognize ever more and more the community 
of our colonial interests and the necessity of a close collabora- 
tion. Apart from the seamy sides of the Leopold regime, the 
Belgians have shown themselves vigorous and courageous 
colonists; and, practical people as they are, they will warmly 
welcome the help of German capital, since it is difficult for 
them to turn their colony to account by their own resources. 



In his interesting pamphlet on the New Cameroons, Emil 
Zimmermann shows how intimately intertwined the interests 
of Belgium and Germany in Central Africa with regard 
to the development of communications are bound to be. 
He insists rightly that Belgium could only regard with plea- 
sure the advent of the German spirit of enterprise in the 
navigation of the Congo. On the basis of his first-hand study 
of local conditions, Zimmermann comes to this conclusion: 
"To-day it might seem rash to predict that in lo or 12 years 
Central Africa will have a trade of 1,000,000,000 marks: when 
the next four or five years of peaceful development [1914. 
1915, 1916, 1917, 1918!] have passed over this region, this 
'prophecy' will no longer seem anything incredible." 

Already therefore in 191 3 we find a contact of thought 
between the entourage of Kiihlmann and the chief exponent 
of Mittel-Afrika, the author of the book here presented to 
the English reader. There is another point of contact in the 
relative depreciation of the potentialities of Turkey-in-Asia 
by the author of the 1913 pamphlet. He does not indeed 
v/ant Germany to give up all her interest in the future of 



liv Introduction 

Turkey, but he lays great stress on the dangers, should Ger- 
many allow herself to become entangled with the Turkish 
Empire. 

He is concerned to show how much safer, and how much 
richer, the prospects are, which are afforded by Central 
Africa. With this we may compare the views of Zimmermann 
in 19 1 7 (pages xxxv and xxxvi). 

Again the author of the anonymous pamphkt uses 
language closely parallel to Hans Delbriick's, quoted above, 
as to the kind of people for whom Germany needs an outlet 
overseas. Germany, the author points out, like Delbriick, 
has no surplus population in th-e proper sense. But there is 
a surplus of the German educated class who could go and 
direct native labour. Germany does not need colonies to 
give her emigrants a permanent home (Siedlungskolonien) ; 
but she needs spheres reserved to her, within which German 
capital and German brains and German technical science 
could find scope in the production and export of raw materials 
for German industries. 

As a commentary, it is interesting to see what one of the 
best-informed Englishmen, Mr. George Saunders, formerly 
correspondent of The Times in Berlin, wrote in the autumn 
of 1914: — 

The settlement of the Morocco crisis of 191 1 was one of 
the worst products of modern diplomacy. It may have 
temporarily freed the hands of France for her task in 
Morocco, but the partition of the French Congo which it 
affected, with two horns of territory from the German Came- 
roons abuttmg upon the Congo River, manifestly established 
an untenable situation, and can only have been designed as 
a prelude to aggressive German action against the Congo Act 
and the Congo State. German designs upon the Colonies of 
France, which have since been openly confessed by the 
German Chancellor (White Paper on the European Crisis, 
No. 85) assuredly embraced the acquisition of France's re- 
versionary rights to the Belgian Congo. Moreover, it seems 
probable that the uivasion of Belgium and the destruction of 



Introduction Iv 

her towns by the methods of the Huns was part of a plan 
for securing at the end of a successful war the surrender of 
Belgium's Congo possessions as the price of peace. The 
wholesale destruction of Belgium's economic resources, it was 
doubtless calculated, would render it impossible for her in 
any case to prosecute her great Central African enterprise.— 
(The Last of the Huns, pp. 150, 151.) 

In the ultimatum, it is true, sent to the Belgian Govern- 
ment on August 2, 1914, the German Government "pledges 
itself to guarantee in the fullest extent at the conclusion of 
peace the existing territories (Besitzstand) and independence 
of the kingdom." This phrase does not seem to bind 
Germany in respect to the Belgian territory in Africa. 
The French translation given in the Belgian Grey Book: 
'*Le Gouvernement allemand de son cote s'engage, au 
mom-ent de la paix, a garantir le royaume et ses possessions 
dans toute leur etendue," is now, I believe regarded by the 
Belgian Government as incorrect. 



12.— BRITISH OPPOSITION TO MITTEL-AFBIKA 

Dr. Solf knows that the scheme for a German African 
Empire is now likely to encounter opposition from the British 
Commonwealth, and the opposition arouses his anger. It 
seems to him so manifestly unreasonable. Indeed if one could 
accept his postulate, that the extent of colonial territory 
possessed by any European Power ought in all cases to be 
proportionate to the size of the Power, it would be mathe- 
matically demonstrable that Germany had too little and 
Belgium and Great Britain too much. But the question 
becomes less simpk, if we have to consider, not only the 
size of a Power but its character. It is no good pretending 
that the question of an increase of German power in Africa 
has not become a very different one since the revelation of the 
character of Germany as a State which the world has had 



Ivi Introduction 

since 1914. Dr. Solf talks as if all the suspicions of what 
Germany might do, if she had her African Empire, were 
gratuitous inventions : — 

Our enemies, with their characteristic dexterity, twist the 
facts; they tax us with preparing for colonial war in ad- 
vance, and, as a deterrent, they depict the fearful highhanded 
acts of aggression which the world must be prepared for on 
our part in the future, if we continued to be a colonial Power 
and if Prussian militarism had a field for its rage in Africa. 

But one has only to look back at th-e quotations on 
preceding pages to see that what we fear is no more than 
what the Germans themselves proclaim that they intend. If 
Dr. Solf could by an effort of the imagination plac-e himself at 
the standpoint of a statesman of the British Commonwealth, 
would it appear to him anything unreasonable that we should 
be loth to see Germany — Germany as she still is to-day — 
acquire a position in which she would hav-e the connexions 
of the British Commonwealth at her mercy? 

We cannot, however, do justice to the German position 
unless we realize that for Germans the fundamental con- 
sideration is that unless Germany does get Mittel-Afrika, 
the British Commonwealth will have Germany at its mercy; 
we could at any moment, they say, ruin Germany by cutting 
her off from the raw materials of Africa. 

Are we, then, to conclude that the state of the case is 
this: Either Germany at the mercy of the British Common- 
wealth or the British Commonwealth at the mercy of Ger- 
many: one of the two? It must be ill for the peace of 
mankind if this is so. 

One may observe that the presupposition in all such argu- 
ments is that the old state of the world in which every nation 
depends for its safety simply upon its own strength and the 
alliances it may form at discretion— the state which has been 
described as that of ''international anarchy"— goes on after 



Introduction Ivii 

the war as before. Supposing in its place something of the 
nature of a League of Nations arises, there will no longer 
be a question of any nation being at the mercy of any other 
nation. The international authority will be able to bring to 
bear against any Power which acts towards another in a way 
regarded by the general conscience of the world as unjust 
the strength, exercised either by military or by economic 
pressure, of all the rest. If confidence in such an organization 
of the world were once established, a nation would be able 
to forgo many safeguards which it dare not forgo in the state 
of international anarchy. 

So long as such a state goes on, no British statesman 
could, without betraying his trust, put the Commonwealth in 
a position in which it was always exposed to paralyzing blows 
from Germany. One can imagine what the feelings of the 
future citizens of the Commonwealth, British or South 
African, would be towards the men of this generation, if they 
had always upon them the incubus of a great military German- 
African Power, and remembered that there had been a 
moment when the German rule had been cleared out of Africa, 
and a little firmness on our part (so it would seem to them) 
would have saved Africa and the Commonwealth and the 
world for good from this frightful complication, which made 
it possible for the British Commonwealth to live only at the 
price of an unremitted agonizing effort. 

If this is not to be, the only alternative courses would 
seem to be either to keep the Germans, as a political and 
military Power, wholly out of Africa, and guarantee to them 
by securities of another kind, by definite treaties and by fair 
practice, their supply of raw materials on equal terms, or to 
strive for an effectual League of Nations. 

If such a League could be established as the result of 
this war it would indeed be an end which might seem to repay 
the agonies and efforts of four years.. So long as there is a 



Iviii Introduction 

chance of it, to continue in the old state of international 
anarchy, however strong the securities may be which we, as 
a single Power, obtain, would be a poor satisfaction in 
comparison. 

There is further the humanitarian consideration as to how 
the black peoples would be affected by being put back, or 
put for the first time, under German rule. On this topic Dr. 
Solf has a great deal to say. He implies that the English are 
dishonest in instituting an atrocity campaign against the 
Germans. It is fair to remember that Dr. Solf's own record 
as a colonial administrator is a high one in the matter of 
justice and solicitude for the welfare of the native peoples. 
He seems ready to admit that German colonial history has 
been disfigured by some great atrocities, but he maintains, 
on the one hand, that serious efforts have been made in 
recent years, since Dernburg's reforms, to correct abuses, 
and, on the other hand, that no Europeans have an 
absolutely clean record, and the British a worse record 
than the Germans. Here again, it is fair to do justice 
to the movement for considerate treatment of the 
native peoples, which had no doubt made some way in 
Germany before the war and had found support in missionary, 
as well as in Social Democrat, circles. Yet this would not 
dispense the British from the duty of examining very carefully 
what in actual practice German rule in Africa had been before 
consigning to it multitudes of the primitive races. We may 
grant Dr. Solf that a catalogue of particular atrocities is not a 
conclusive argument. Neither, may we say, is his argument 
conclusive, when he appeals to the fidelity of the black troops 
in East Africa. For, as has since then been publicly pointed 
out, the Germans seem to have given their black soldiers 
considerable privileges, which enabled them to hector it over 
the rest of the population, and their fidelity would not there- 
fore in itself prove the humane character of German rule 



Introduction lix 

as a whole. For a really objective valuation of the records 
of the different European Powers in Africa no doubt a mass 
of detailed local knowledge is required which very few men 
in any European country can possess. But in this connexion 
the ordinary Englishman may reasonably be moved by the 
streams of tendency which he finds prevalent in Germany 
itself. We may recognize the liberal and philanthropic cur- 
rents, yet we cannot but also see that the Zabern spirit and 
the worship of strength as such has still great hold in those 
circles from which the men sent to bear command in the 
tropics would largely be drawn. Supposing the political 
developments of the future should bring, let us say, the Social 
Democrat Party to power in Germany, the question of 
German rule over black people would at once become a ver>^ 
different one. Leaving particular acts of atrocity aside, it 
can hardly be questioned that German rule, as a whole, has a 
harsh character as compared with British. This is admitted, 
for instance, by Rohrbach in the passage quoted above where 
he describes the British methods, in comparison with the 
German, as ''Verhdtschelung/' "spoiling." The same thing 
seems to be indicated by Dr. Solf, when he speaks of a 
"native policy based on false humanitarianism" (Speech at 
Leipzig, reported in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung for 
June 8, 1917). 

Dr. Solf has dealt at some length with the use of black 
man-power for military purposes. He declares himself to be 
on principle emphatically against the "militarizing of the 
natives." What he says runs counter to some of the hopes 
expressed by unofficial propagators of the Mittel-Afrika 
idea, as may be seen by previous quotations. 



There can be no question that the possibility of falling 
back upon vast reserves of black man-power for the armies 
of the future will constitute a new and menacing danger 
for the peace of Europe. The European Powers have there- 



jx Introduction 

fore a common interest in obviating the new peril which has 
suddenly risen above the horizon. The peril is recognized by 
our enemies as well as by ourselves.— (Speech of December 
21, 1917.) 

And here Dr. Solf takes occasion to tax the enemy with 
distorting facts by attributing to the Germans the design of 
creating big black armies in Africa. He especially censures 
Sir Harry Johnston for some statements of his which 
appeared in the Manchester Guardian of July 4, 191 7. Sir 
Harry had stated that German Ministers in office had 
"indirectly but plainly enough" indicated that they cherished 
those plans. Dr. Solf replies : — 

I am the only German Minister in office who has spoken 
about the militarization of Africa— in Leipzig recently — and 
what I said was exactly the opposite, namely, that we do rot 
desire the militarization of the black races of Africa ! The 
best way of preventing such militarization is to agree to the 
new partitioning of the Continent which we ask for. If an 
equipoise of power all round is substituted for the unequal 
distribution which has prevailed hitherto, it ceases to be 
possible for any one colonial Power to transport black forces 
to Europe without exposing the colony to the danger of an at- 
tack by the equally strong neighbour Power. But the in- 
terest which any Power may have in organizing native armies 
will be very much diminished, when there can no longer be 
any question of employing them in Europe or anywhere out- 
side the country. Since, however, our attitude to the whole 
question is one of principle, we shall be ready to go farther 
and promote any limitation by agreement of armaments in 
Africa. — (Speech of December 21, 1917.) 

One may believe that Dr. Solf is quite sincere in desiring 
to save the world from the evils which he rightly discerns to 
follow from the extensive use of black armies in the quarrels 
of European Powers. Yet his argument is a curious one. 
The army, black and white, of the German African Empire 
is in the first instance to be increased (see quotation on 
page i) till it is so formidable to the neighbouring Powers 
that they do not dare to send their black armies to Europe. 



Introduction Ixi 

They will then lose interest in their black armies and reduce 
their number! Then Germany will be willing to agree to 
reduce hers! 

We should not overlook one special factor of danger to 
the native peoples in the return of German rule. As Dr. 
Oskar Karstedt showed above (page xii), the Germans are 
very sensible of the blow given to their prestige by the con- 
quest of the German colonies. We need not accept as tme the 
stories propagated in Germany of gratuitous humiliations in- 
flicted upon Germans by the conquerors. When the time comes 
for impartial investigators to examine such charges, they will 
also have to take account of the circumstantial charges made 
against the Germans of atrocious conduct towards English 
men and women and the native Christians attached to British 
missions. The experiences of the Universities' Mission to 
Central Africa have already been given publicity in England. 
We have nothing here to do with such stories told on either 
side. Apart from anything done, or not done, by individual 
Englishmen to individual Germans, the expulsion of the 
Germans from their colonies has in itself inflicted a grave blow 
upon German prestige. And, as Dr. Karstedt pointed out, 
Europeans believe that their government of black peoples 
largely rests upon prestige. If the Germans returned to their 
colonies, it is not likely that they would be able to restore 
their prestige, as Dr. Karstedt desires, by compelling the 
British to do public penance, and failing that, they would 
certainly be under strong temptation to remedy the disad- 
vantage by revenging themselves ruthlessly upon all who had 
shown friendliness to the British and make the native peoples 
generally feel the weight of their hand. 

The whole question of a German oversea empire would, 
of course, take on a very different complexion, if the German 
state came to be directed by a new spirit. It would probably 



Ixii Introduction 

not be safe to count on such a new spirit as durable, until : 
certain period of time had elapsed after the end of the war. 
And here one may remark that the problem of the conquered 
German colonies is usually discussed as if the only alterna- 
tives were the definitive retention of the colonies by Great 
Britain and France at the peace, or their immediate return to 
Germany. Another possible line of procedure would surely 
be their provisional retention by Great Britain or France, or 
by some international authority, till it was possible to know 
for certain that new elements had come to the top in Germany 
and that the spirit of force-worship and ambition had been 
clean cast out. 

Edwyn Bevan. 
February, ipi8. 

[Some parts of the above Introduction were embodied in 
three articles I contributed during February, 1918, to the 
Westminster Gazette. My thanks are due to the Editor 
for permission to reproduce them in this book.— E.B.] 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE OF 
CENTRAL AFRICA* 

I.— POSITION AS A WORLD-POWER 

T N the thirty years before the war it was given to us to rise 
-■- to the admitted rank of an economic world-power. Our 
success was great ; we used to ascribe it to our policy of Pro- 
tection. The essential character of our Protective system can 
be described shortly as consisting in the systematic trans- 
ference of the work of producing raw materials for our indus- 
tries to cheap soils overseas. Let us give an instance. The 
area und-er cultivation in the case of rape seed diminished 
from 179,000 hectars in 1878 to 31,000 hectars in 19 13, and 
in the case of flax in the same period from 134,000 hectars 
to barely 15,000. Our oil and fibre industries drew their raw 
material from lands more favourable, climatically, where 
production was cheaper. It became the basis of our economic 
policy to acquire the raw material necessary for our industries 
as cheaply as possible; on the other hand, our frontiers were 
barred as far as possible by high tariffs against the importa- 
tion of any article of human food. The supplying of food 
to the growing population at high prices was reserved for 
German agriculture. 

By 1907, roughly 2,400,000 people were employed in 
our textile and clothing industries ; our exports of cotton and 
woollen goods, clothes and millinery, worsted, cotton-yarn and 
thread were to the value of, roughly, 1,000,000,000 marks in 
1913. If our own agricultural efforts had had to produce 
wool and fibre, the rise of our textile and clothing trades 



^ Das deutsche Kaiserreich Mittelafrika als Grundlage emer neucn 
deutschen Weltpolitik. Von Emil Zimmermann. VerlaR der Euro- 
pdischen Staats- und Wirtschafts-Zeitimg G.m.b.H. Berlin, 1917- 



2 The German Empire of Central Africa 

would have been impossible. We should have had changes 
in population, more peopk engaged in agriculture, fewer in 
industry, fewer customers for foodstuffs, and cheap food 
with low industrial wages. But the Anglo-Saxons have been 
supplying us with cotton and wool in growing measure. In 
1913 they sent us 223 million marks' worth of sheep's wool 
(53 per cent, of our total imports), and more than 600 million 
marks' worth of cotton (97 per cent, of our total imports). 
The development of our textile and clothing industries, and in 
close connection with that the prosperity of our agriculture, 
was dependent on the Anglo-Saxon supply of wool and 
cotton. The case was exactly the same with the supply of 
copper for our electric industries. Of our total imports to 
the value of 335^4 million marks, we drew 316 million marks' 
worth from the Anglo-Saxons (294 million marks' worth from 
the United States alone). In other products our dependence 
on the Anglo-Saxons was less, but yet so great that it is no 
exaggeration to say that our system of Protection was only 
possible because the Anglo-Saxons put at our disposal their 
fields of cheap production across the sea. 

But they did more. They gave admission to our mer- 
chants, trade-agents, commercial establishments everywhere 
in their broad domains, looked kindly on them, as long as 
they were modest, and thereby they assisted materially to 
open markets for our industrial products. 

Suppose we had not had the rich fields of South and West 
Africa, Australia, India, the Far East, Canada, where the 
Anglo-Saxons had done the preliminary work, but had had 
to begin at the very beginning in the acquisition of our raw 
materials— should we have climbed so quickly to the position 
of a great industrial and commercial Power? Our rise 
depended essentially on the English policy of the Open Door. 
We were sojourners in England's house, paying guests of the 
Anglo-Saxons. The secret of our success lies, apart from our 
organization and the training of our working classes, in the 
fact that England and the countries which are the great 
producers of raw materials granted us an Open Door, allowed 



The German Empire of Central Africa 3 

us to draw on their vast reservoirs of raw materials. If this 
permission is withdrawn, we shall be at one stroke once more 
the Germany of 1880. 

Now England will not kt us draw on her stores again. 
Since we have grown great, she feels us as a troublesome 
intruder and means to be rid of us. That is the meaning of 
the war. 

That a keen recognition of the situation has not been 
lacking in Germany is shown by the following letter which 
the Secretary of State, Dr. Solf, addressed as far back as 
the 7th September, 1914, to Herr O. Riddel, in Hamburg, 
President of the German Trade and Plantation Company in 
the South Sea Islands : — 

Fortunately, the fate of our colonies will not be decided 
in Africa and in the South Seas, but on the battlefields of 
Europe, and in view of the successes of our arms up till now 
I am completely confident that we shall succeed in finally 
bringing to the ground our worst foe, England. But it is 
a hard task, far harder than most of our countrymen realize, 
who only know the British Empire by hearsay and who look 
at it through spectacles tinted by righteous anger at Eng- 
land's present attitude. We need not fear England's military 
power on land. Our commanders will deal with the arts of 
Kitchener and French. At sea our young, numerically in- 
ferior, navy stands face to face with the greatest sea-power 
of all time, which yet found it necessary to call in Japan 
as well as the allied French fleet. It may sound presumptuous 
to expect more in this unequal struggle than a heavy blow 
to our English enemy. But did not Nelson at Trafalgar de- 
feat a superior force? The example of our enemy justifies us 
in the boldest hopes. And Great Britain's prestige, which is 
already shaken by our victories over her army, will hardly 
survive any reverse at sea, for England's power over her 
dependent native populations rests on their belief in the in- 
vincibility of the mother-country. In spite of all, it is a case 
of keeping cool and on our guard; for even if England is 
weakened we must not under-estimate the means she always 
uses in war to make up for her lack of military preparation. 
However repellent and treacherous the weapons are, with 
which England fights against our trade and our industries 
they are weapons which in effectiveness equal our dreaded 
howitzers. ... But complaining is no use. We must fight 
and hold out against these weapons too, hold out on both 
fronts, the military and the economic, until we have fought 



4 The German Empire of Central Africa 

our way to peace and security for at least a hundred years. 
While we are fighting our continental foes for victory, the 
struggle with England is for the spoils of victory. And 
they must be no small ones to reward the heroism and cheer- 
ful self-sacrifice of our people. 

There is as little friendship for England in this document 
as in Bethmann's negotiations before the war with England 
about Central Africa. It was coming to be realized that 
England was trying to prevent us using her Open Door, and 
that it was advisable to undertake with all energy the 
production of raw materials on tropical territories of our own. 

Th-e long hesitation of the Imperial Government on the 
submarine question arose, too, from the perception of our 
real economic position. It was not desired that the struggle 
should take on a form which would place our whole future 
existence as an economic Power at stake. An attempt, there- 
fore, was made to avoid a breach with the United States. 
The breach has taken place, and it is Wilson who gave the 
signal for the attack on our economic position in the world. 
When he forced Central and South America to declare the 
breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Germany, that was 
no child's play on the part of the enemy, but a very serious 
matter. So long as the United States did not go in with 
England, we could count as our war-aim the restoration of our 
old economic system, the development of a colonial Empire 
of our own in order that we should not be entirely dependent 
on others for our raw materials; to-day, however, the situa- 
tion is essentially different. To-day it must be clear to us 
that the Anglo-Saxons have set before themselves the great 
aim of founding a World-Syndicate in raw materials directed 
against Germany, and that they will stick stubbornly to their 
efforts to achieve this aim. It is not, of course, conceivable 
that the Syndicate will forbid or prevent the sale of raw 
materials to Germany; that could not be carried through. 
But that is not necessary; it is quite enough that the British 
Empire and the United States should conclude commercial 
treaties with their associates and with each other, laying down 



The German Empire of Central Africa 5 

that raw materials destined for other than the contracting 
States should be subject to an export duty. If these con- 
ditions remained in force for from twelve to fifteen years, the 
rehabilitation of our former economic and trade policy would 
be impossible. Neither Flanders nor the Economic League 
of Mittel-Europa is any safeguard against this danger. We 
cannot support 70 million people in Gennany, as before the 
war, if we have not at our disposal oversea territories where 
raw materials can be produced very cheaply. 

And so now that the issue of the war is narrowed to a 
decision as to whether we are to ha'ue real, and not only 
Imaginary, oversea dominion or are to sink to the rank of a 
third-rate Power, we must summon up all our resolution and 
energy to achieve the first alternative. 

At an earlier stage of the war we could still cherish the 
hope that we should succeed in continuing — though with 
certain modifications — our former policy of using foreign 
territory for our interests ; it must be clear to us to-day that it 
is a question of standing on our own feet as a World-Power. 
We climbed by means of England's poHcy of the Open Door ; 
now the Anglo-Saxons are going to correct that mistake. 
They will no longer suffer Germany beside them as a 
pretended World-Power. And now it is a question of fight- 
ing our way to a position as a World-Power or sinking to be a 
third-rate Power. The struggle to assert our standing as a 
World-Power is now the object of the war. 

II.— THE WAY TO BECOME A WORLD-POWER 

The Flanders politicians say: "World-power can only be 
won by the possession of th-e coast of Flanders; that is the 
preliminary condition of every prosperous colonial and oversea 
policy, every policy independent of the decisions which Eng- 
land and North America may take." That may carry convic- 
tion to a way of thought directed towards the Continent, but 
proves itself a wrong conclusion, if one considers more deeply, 
We are not here going to deal with the fear that the incorpora- 



6 The German Empire of Central Africa 

tion of countries with populations of a different stock might 
lead to a weakening of Germany, although it naturally sug- 
gests itself. But this fear— in spite of all experience in the 
old frontier provinces— is not shared by large numbers of 
people in Germany, and so it shall be left out of account. 

But I suppose everyone will agree (i) that real world- 
power can only be maintained if a strong foundation is laid 
in the mother-country; (2) that it can only be maintained if 
strong branches of the home economic system are established 
overseas; and (3) that the strength of the mother-country is 
in the long run only assured by means of a sound economic 
foundation. 

It may be admitted at once that territorial gains in 
Lithuania and Courland will not only satisfy the desire for 
land which will arise after the war, but will place the 
food-supply of the whole population on a broader basis. 
The same advantage could not be expected from over- 
populated Belgium; that, at any rate, means no further 
alleviation in the food question. It will, perhaps, neverthe- 
less be suggested that we might find employment for workers 
and foremen in Belgian industries. But does this and the 
possible increase of the food-supply really mean any 
strengthening of the home foundation? It only seems so to 
a superficial survey, because we think to-day, under the stress 
of the food shortage, that we should be more secure in a future 
war if only we had Courland and Lithuania. But we quite 
forget that our shortage of food is caused more by the war 
itself than by England's blockade. The decisive element is 
the lack of men in town and country, the deterioration in 
the cultivation of the land, and consequently in the crops, the 
establishment of vast camps by the military authorities, and 
the unreasonable panic of large sections of the population. 
And in a future war of equal magnitude Lithuania and Cour- 
land would afford us no greater possibilities of holding out; 
indeed, we already had both of them at our disposal in the 
second autumn of the war. We still have enough to eat, even 
if sometimes it is rather a tight pinch; that is the best proof 



The German Empire of Central Africa 7 

that the basis of our food-supply is strong enough. But 
flourishing industries and strong finance are also integral 
parts of the home foundation; they are just as important as 
the food-supply. Now it is against these elements that the 
enemy's attack is at present directed. And it is these, and not 
the food-supply, that need assuring permanently for the future. 
The enemy is certainly trying to cut ofif our imports of 
foodstuffs in order to weaken us; but the main thing in his 
eyes is to stop the import of raw materials. And he had 
made preparations far in advance. Wilson's demand to the 
neutrals, to support his action against Germany, was issued a 
few days after the ist February, 1917. So important a step — 
which had a speedy success too in China, Brazil and a number 
of smaller states — is not the result of one night's deliberation. 
Wilson thought it over for months^ and discussed the question 
in every detail with England. The entry of the United 
States into the war and the way in which it was achieved 
furnish the best proof that England has given up the idea of 
crushing Germany on the field of battle in this war. The 
bloodless war which bars Germany from raw materials by 
means of raised prices is the next move. The Anglo- 
Saxons want to tie down China, Japan and all Central and 
South America to this programme. Our great industries, 
which are dependent on a supply of raw materials from abroad, 
would then not be able to maintain themselves. For the 
employment of the workmen who would so be set free we 
should have to develop our iron and steel industry and our 
coal-mining to the uttermost, and these industries would not 
be in a position to employ all the hands who would be thrown 
out of work; many thousands would pour into agriculture. 
Whole hosts of them, however, would leave their native land ; 
and the consequence would finally be the retrogression of 
German agriculture. For a necessary condition of sound 
agricultural development is industrial prosperity and sound 
proportionate commercial returns (not cut-throat methods as 
at present during the war), and the basis of these is cheap raw 



8 The German Empire of Central Africa 

material for industries. Supposing the consequences of the 
blockade of raw materials have shown themselves to the full in 
15 or 20 years, England and her satellites v/ill then declare 
war afresh on a German Empire which will be rotten to the 
core, and then our strong home foundation will be lacking. 
The Flanders politicians recognize this danger so ckarly 
that they actually base their claims on the necessity of 
assuring permanently the supply of industrial raw materials. 
Only they fail to show that the possession of Antwerp and 
the coast of Flanders actually produces this result. Admiral 
von Thomsen is not of this opinion. In the Unabhdngige 
Nationalkorrespondenz of the i8th June, 1917, he writes:— 

If a great deal is being said nowadays about the acquisi- 
tion of the coast of Flanders "in order to win freedom for 
Germany's traffic on the seas," it must, on the other hand, 
perpetually be emphasized that the possession of the coast 
of the Channel, as far as and including Boulogne, is indis- 
pensable for Germany's security in face of the British fleet. 
The possession of this coast would, however, never be secure 
unless Germany had complete control of the corresponding 
hinterland. 

After three years of war we do not even hold Dunkirk; 
and Admiral von Thomsen demands Calais and Boulogne 
with their hinterland as a preliminary condition of the free- 
dom of sea-borne commerce ! The supporters of the Flanders 
policy, then, are not even agreed as to the limits of the claims 
to be put forward. But they are not really right in their view 
that freedom of the seas is all that is necessary. Suppose 
the Anglo-Saxon Syndicate refuses to sell us raw materials 
cheaply in spite of our possession of Flanders? Then we 
should have a lack of raw materials in the country in spite of 
freedom of the seas, and that would be the beginning of the 
undermining of our economic position — which is our home 
foundation. 

In the form which the international situation has taken 
owing to the embitterment of the relations between the 
Anglo-Saxons and ourselves, we cannot assure our industries, 



The German Empire of Central Africa 9 

our finances, or in the end even the prosperity of our agricul- 
ture, by any steps taken on the Continent; cheap fields of 
supply overseas are essential to a strong home policy; and we 
cannot attain them through Flanders. In order to secure our 
position we must go a different way about it, and this way is 
indicated to us by what has happened in Russia and the great 
points of opposition between North and South America. 

Great as the Mittel-Europa Idea is, what does it mean 
economically? There are certainly many possibilities in the 
Balkans and the Near East, but they need developing, and 
for that men are necessary. Mittel-Europa comes to life 
if we imagine Russia with its wide spaces and its great 
economic future added to it. Russia, Austria-Hungary, the 
Balkans, Turkey can set us free from the Anglo-Saxons in 
the matter of wheat, maize, legumens, oleaginous vegetable 
products, tobacco, vegetable fibre, fruit, wood, meat, poultry. 
The further foodstuffs that we need, such as coffee, cocoa, 
tobacco, as well as raw materials, such as oleaginous products, 
wool and skins, we can draw from South America, and it is 
not too dif^cult to make Central and South America break 
away from the hostile coalition. 

South America's natural complement is not the United 
States nor the British Empire, which are both producers of 
raw material, but the industrial German Empire. Further, 
both North and South America hunger equally for population, 
and they will be eager rivals after the war. Emigration has 
stopped during the war. After the war North America will 
want to lay out its vast gains, and will be in urgent need of 
hands. The United States will do anything to entice the 
stream of immigration to their own harbours. They will 
assimilate without hesitation all that Belgium, Serbia, Russia 
and Italy can send them. Now we and our allies should do 
v€ry vital service to South America and Mexico by a 
systematic propaganda of re-emigration among Germans, 
Austrians, Hungarians and German Russians in the ^'nited 
States and Canada, and the diversion of a great part of this 
stream to Mexico and South America. These countries, too, 



10 The German Empire of Central Africa 

will have urgent need of population after the war; if we give 
it to them, we shall cause them to join us. But it must not be 
supposed that the matter can be put off till the end of the 
war. All that South Americans know about us so far is that 
we tried feverishly to avoid the breach with the United States, 
as a section of the Anglo-Saxons. They have seen in that 
the effort to keep the road open back to our relations of 
dependence. They have no reason to suppose that we are 
going to change our policy. They must therefore be shown 
and told clearly and unmistakably that we mean to take the 
road to world-power on our own feet, and not on Anglo-Saxon 
crutches. This will not be done by pointing to Flanders; 
that will be no use to the South Americans. Just as we 
cannot alter our attitude to Japan without being in a position 
to bring pressure to bear on Australia, India and Western 
America, so, if we confine ourselves to the North Sea, we 
cannot free the South Americans from the pressure which the 
Anglo-Saxons would bring to bear on them, if England still 
dominated Central Africa, which lies over against South 
America. But our relations with South America at once 
assume a quite different aspect, if we possess a compact 
Central-African Empire. South America would have as 
great an interest as ourselves in the strengthening of this 
Empire, because it would gain thereby a trustworthy ally 
against the Anglo-Saxon. And it would make an end of the 
fear which is aroused by German immigration into South 
America, the fear lest some day Germany might attempt to 
bring South America under her domination. Mittel-Afrika is 
so essential a preliminary condition, if we are to complete our 
economic system, which cannot dispense with the tropical 
fields of cheap supply already opened up, by bringing in 
South America, that for that reason alone it would have to 
stand in the forefront of all our war-aims. 

Again, a German Mittel-Afrika would exercise strong 
influence towards the Indian Ocean, the South Seas and the 
Far East. In order to make this clear we must make a slight 
digression. 



• The German Empire of Central Africa 11 

We must reconcile ourselves to the fact that England will 
keep her strong position on the Suez Canal and the Red Sea ; 
that is almost essential to her for her domination of India! 
But it is almost as important for us as for her that she should 
stay there. We cannot take India, and either Russia or 
Japan would become a danger to the world, if either of them 
possessed the country. The future development of the world 
must be envisaged by reference to the great tropical terri- 
tories which provide the food-supply for great masses of 
people. The two most important are China and India, with 
their 400 and 320 million inhabitants ; they comprise together 
over two-fifths of the whole population of the world. Can 
both countries ever be allowed to fall into the hands of the 
Japanese, who are already hankering after China? Or 
can we ever quietly see Russia in possession of India, when 
she already has broad and very rich territories in Central 
Asia and when her vast population threatens to become a 
danger for Mittel-Europa in the near future. England will 
not be irreparably incapacitated for holding India by this 
war. She has shown herself capable of a huge expenditure 
of strength, even in the conduct of land warfare, such as the 
world till recently would have thought impossible. England 
will show a new upward impetus in industry and trade, and 
she will need her complement in tropical territory. To take 
India from England would mean throwing her back on West 
and Central Africa — apart from Brazil, the last remaining 
tropical areas of economic value — and making these two still 
undeveloped territories of the future, which contain 30 to 
40 million negroes apiece, the object of strife between the 
industrial nations of Europe. That would put Central and 
Western Europe at a heavy disadvantage as against Russia, 
Japan and the United States. A sensible world-policy must 
avoid this mistake and preserve England's dominion in India 
while confining her in Africa to the south. Tropical Africa 
should be as far as possible wholly reserved as the 
complementary economic domain of Mittel-Europa. 

The centre of gravity of the British Empire still lies to-day 



12 The German Empire of Central Africa • 

apparently immovable in the North Atlantic, although not 
less than 350-355 of its 440-450 million inhabitants live in 
South and East Africa, India and Australia— that is to say, 
round the Indian Ocean. But economically and politically 
the great Empire round the Indian Ocean has been growing 
more important every year. The export trade of this part of 
the British Empire already reaches the value of 14,000,000,000 
marks as against about the 30,000,000,000 of England, 
Canada, the West Indies and West Africa. From a military 
point of view, too, this part of the Empire has played a 
notable part in this war — a commendable achi-evement, when 
one reflects that the Sudan and the greater part of South and 
East Africa have been conquered only since 1898. Australia, 
India and South Africa will grow in economic and military 
importance after this war. Thus the great lines of communi- 
cation between England and these colonies will become vital 
arteries for the British Empire, which we can threaten most 
seriously from East and West Africa. Mittel-Afrika would 
lie more or less in the centre of the British Empire, and 
Australia and India would have to reckon with this German 
colony in their big trade-enterprises. The policy of 
Mittel-Afrika would have a strong influence on that of 
Australia and India, and therefore on that of Japan, too. 
Through Mittel-Afrika we should really take our place as a 
World-Power — with great effect on South America, the Indian 
Ocean and the Arab nations of North Africa; and Mittel- 
Afrika gives us a far more s-ecure position, as against the 
Anglo-Saxon, than does the Flaiiders coast, which, on the 
showing of Admiral von Thomsen, has no ' value without 
Boulogne. If by the energetic execution of our work in 
Central Africa we proclaim to the world our firm resolve Jio 
stand as far as possible on our own feet, as in other things 
so in the production of raw materials for our industries, then 
we shall have broken the will of the Anglo-Saxon to form a 
World-Syndicate against us, because we should then be in a 
position to count on South America. And our economic 
system, characterized by cheap raw material for our industries 



The German Empire of Central Africa 13 

and raised home prices for foodstuffs as the basis of our agri- 
cultural prosperity, would be assured, and thus the strength 
of our home base would be assured also. Further, we 
shall not thus in future be mere sojourners on the soil of 
more favoured nations; we shall raise by our own strength 
a great tract of the earth and have, after a generation, a 
Brazil or an India of our own. That cannot be valued too 
highly. 

The champions of the Flanders policy are always asking 
how we are to get raw materials into Germany, if we have not 
got a secure outlet to the open sea. This question is an 
expression of the fear that England — of whom certainly we 
can believe anything — might one day in the middle of peace 
bar the road to us through the Channel and carry off our 
ships and goods. That is indeed a very serious and, as the 
course of events in Greece shows, by no means imaginary 
danger, in face of which all international agreements are 
inadequate. But it is open to question whether the posses- 
sion of Antwerp and the Flanders coast would effectively 
obviate it, especially as there are very many strong 
grounds for believing that it will be very difficult to get 
England out of Calais and Boulogne, and that she will in any 
case remain there, if we keep Belgium. We should have to 
drive England out of Calais and Boulogne by a fresh and 
bitter struggle, and that in such a war we should have France 
on our side appears, after all our experience of the French, an 
extremely bold assumption. 

In order to estimate the question of Flanders rightly we 
must go back to its true essentials and realize it for what it 
really is— a question of security against English attacks. 
Besides that, the value of Belgium— estimated at 
50,000,000,000 marks — plays, of course, a great part if we 
take Belgium's coal-mines into account; but all that loses 
valu-e in view of the fact that Belgium does not assure the 
prosperity of our industries any more than Couriand and 
Lithuania do, and that for our industries we must have cheap 
and, for the most part, tropical fields of supply. These are 



14 The German Empire of Central Africa 

necessary to our existence; but the coast of Flanders only 
means a security for the undisturbed growth of our national 
life. If that is the case, we must decide, first of all, for the 
essentials of life, and then we must enquire whether the coast 
of Flanders is the only possible security. And that is not 
the case. 

We have seen how a German Mittel-Afrika would have 
great influence on India and Australia and, through the 
North African Arabs, on Egypt and the Sudan, how it 
would produce a new position in world-politics. And the 
expectation is not unjustified that a strongly developed 
German Mittel-Afrika would force England to keep the gate 
of the Channel permanently open to us. 

Even in the present war the military strength of the 
G-erman Central African colonies has shown itself too unmis- 
takably to leave any room for further question. The 
memorandum of the Navy League, which the Committee 
submitted to the Chancellor and the Bundesrat, referred ~to 
this in the following terms : — 

It appears, on the other hand, to be a fair deduction from 
the experiences of the war that the West and East African 
colonies will be the most important of all our colonies and 
the easiest to defend. In order to protect them and German 
world-trade effectively, there will be need of a cruiser squad- 
ron able to rely on a few strong bases on land and on float- 
ing bases in the form of depot ships, whose speed and sea- 
going capacity correspond with their own. 

It is a fact of the greatest importance that the German 
East-African troops, in spite of their small numbers, were 
twice within measurable distance of wresting the Uganda 
Railway from the English. On the 19th September, 
1914, the cruiser Konigsberg had destroyed the English 
cruiser Pegasus off Zanzibar; on the 20th September 
a German column advanced from Tanga against 
Mombasa. It stormed the English camp at Majorini 
on the 24th; at the beginning of October the English 



The German Empire of Central Africa 15 

force covering Mombasa was defeated at Gaza, 40 
miles south of the port. Mombasa was in danger of 
falHng into the hands of the Germans. At the same time 
German columns kept advancing from Kilima-njaro against 
the Uganda Railway, and another German column marched 
simultaneously along the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza 
on Port Florence, the terminus of the Uganda Railway. The 
situation was more than critical for the English defence; it 
was saved by the arrival of strong Indian reinforcements. 

In spite of the introduction of great masses of Indians on 
the English side, the German forces had again the upper 
hand in the north at the end of 191 5; they occupied the 
Uganda Railway for a distance of 30 to 40 kilometres to the 
east of Kilima-njaro. Then the arrival of a large Boer army 
brought about a sudden turn of events. 

The capture of the Uganda Railway would have made it 
impossible for England to hold her East-African colony, and 
would have had disastrous effects far away in the Sudan and 
the whole African theatre of war. England and France 
found it very difficult to keep the Sudan quiet, as is proved 
by the rising of the Imam of Darfur and the struggle with the 
Senussi ; French Central Africa and great parts of the French 
Sudan were in revolt even at the beginning of 1917, as we 
learn from reports in the French press. What effect would 
have been produced by the news that the Germans had cap- 
tured the Uganda Railway, occupied Mombasa and Nairobi, 
and got into touch with Abyssinia! All this, as well as the 
loss of the railway-line, was only prevented by England's 
power to move troop transports freely across the Indian 
Ocean. 

By means of this concentration of troops England has 
succeeded at last in capturing the greater part of the colony. 
But a great German Mittel-Afrika on a war footing will not 
only be able to maintain itself against attack from South 
Africa, India and Australia, but, in conjunction with the 
Arabs of North Africa, will represent a Power with which 
England will be in no hurry to pick a quarrel. 



16 The German Empire of Central Africa 

III.— THE BUILDING UP OF GERMAN WORLD-POWER 

We Germans of the Empire do not realize clearly enough 
that the war is a struggle against Germanism all over the 
world, and that it has therefore given us something very 
great and unique as the first prize of victory. The clever 
historian, Albrecht Wirth, writes in the conclusion to his 
Short History of the World (published by Alfred Janssen, 
Hamburg) : — 

The war has given us Germans a forward move which 
tannot be too highly prized; for the first time in history all 
Germans in the world, including the American Germans, 
know themselves to be united in their desires and convic- 
tions. That has never happened before. Quot homines, tot 
sentential We were scattered far and wide over the face of 
the earth, and our views and thoughts were widely sundered. 
Now, however, this disunion is gone for ever. 

Thanks to the war and to the way in which England has 
conducted it more and more keenly as an economic war, there 
is now a German will in the world which revolts against the 
Anglo-Saxon will; every German in the world outside the 
frontiers of the Empire is watching the mighty struggle in 
tense anxiety, and keeps asking himself whether the German 
Empire will succeed in substantiating its claim to a position 
that tells in the world, and hundreds of thousands of Germans 
in foreign countries are expecting for themselves a mighty 
uplift. 

This fact of a general awakening of the German Idea in 
the world is not, unfortunately, sufficiently appreciated at 
home, and we do not realize clearly enough the great advan- 
tage which this awakening secures for us. And so we still 
think too much of incorporating some millions of foreign 
population within our frontiers, because we overlook the fact 
that ten million and more Germans abroad are ready to-day to 
link their fortunes permanently with ours. We must not, of 
course, imagine this readiness to mean that they are waiting 
for the chance of returning to Germany or to annexed terri- 



The German Empire of Central Africa 17 

tories, and those people are making a great mistake, who look 
at the future development of Germany and the world exclu- 
sively from the point of view of their own petty interests. It 
is only too intelligible that the thousands, and perhaps tens of 
thousands, who have found good situations in Courland, 
Lithuania or Belgium, far better in many cases than their 
former civil positions, wish to-day for the continuance of the 
German occupation. Men in field-grey, second and third 
sons of farmers, have looked at the soil of Lithuania and 
Courland with hopes for their own future. Merchants and 
manufacturers dream of new possibilities in the conquered 
territories. Disabled men hope to find a place in the future 
German administration. And from their own small stand- 
point they are all making an accurate enough estimate and 
are awaiting the complete Germanisation of their new 
narrower home through the influx of Germans from abroad 
into the conquered territories. 

But all these estimates are false because they do not take 
into account the needs of our national economic system as a 
whole, such as the process of history has made them. In the 
peace of 1870 it was a question of uniting the Empire into a 
single national and economic organization under one manage- 
ment. To-day the firm ''German Empire" is to be securely 
established as a world-firm. Its right to exist is being 
attacked because it won its prosperity through England's 
laisser-faire. Its credit — that is to say raw material — is to 
be cut off. And the firm ''German Empire" has now to 
prove that it can stand on its own feet without England and 
the United States. That is the question at issue. That is 
the great idea to which everything must be subordinated. 
The Germans abroad have grasped this idea far more clearly 
than the Germans at home, and the former will be in their 
places when they are called upon to co-operate in making 
the world-firm "German Empire" self-supporting. But they 
refuse and hang their heads when they are asked to work for 
Continental aims, to come to Belgium or Courland. 

There is no doubt that a spirit of unrest will seize large 



18 The German Empire of Central Africa 

sections of the Germans abroad directly after the war and will 
last for years. We must take account of the fact that tens 
of thousands of Germans in the United States and Canada, 
South Africa, Australia snd Russia will leave their old homes 
to seek the protection of the German Empire. Side by side 
with this will go an equally great spirit of unrest among the 
population of Germany. Such a war as the present one must 
leave its mark on the peoples of Europe; it will be quite as 
far-reaching in its effects as the Napoleonic wars. We all 
know the consequences of that epoch to our country. First 
came the lean years 1816, 1817; hundreds of thousands 
crossed the sea then. Then political persecution and social 
inequalities drove tens of thousands every year to America. 
That Continent, with its great resources and the alluring 
prospects of gain, with its political and religious freedom, 
seemed the very Promised Land to the masses who felt them- 
selves down-trodden in Europe. Between 1820 and 1885 
Germany lost 5 million souls to America, irrespective of the 
Germans who flocked to the United States from Switzerland, 
Austria-Hungary, Luxemburg and the German settlements 
in Russia. 

The Chancellor, von Bethmann Hollweg, tried to avoid a 
return of the period of emigration by his cry of "an open 
road for ability" and by promising political reforms after the 
war. But first of all we shall have to find subsistence for 
the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of the disabled; 
and that will undoubtedly bar the upward road to the rising 
generation. We shall not be able to find within our borders 
proper room for our youthful talent, even without the further 
influx of Germans from abroad. They see far more clearly 
than we do that a German Empire restricted to the Con- 
tinent of Europe blights all their hopes, and if Germany 
concludes a peace which renounces a colonial policy of her 
own, she will have lost finally and for ever her sons in 
foreign lands. 

The position is quite different as soon as we proclaim our 
will to stand from henceforth on our own feet abroad by 



The German Empire of Central Africa 19 

demanding a great colonial Empire of our own. A great sigh 
of relief will go up at once from the Germans overseas. And 
if we call upon the American Germans to concentrate in 
Central and South America,* hundreds of thousands in 
Canada and the United States wnll obey our call. We know 
at the moment, naturally, very little of the sharp pressure 
which is being brought to bear on the North-American 
Germans ; but the occasional short reports which we get show 
us that it is exceedingly heavy. Hundreds of thousands, 
therefore, will welcome as a deliverance the opportunity of 
shaking the dust of the United States from their feet after 
the war. And they will find conditions of life to which they 
are accustomed in the States of Central and South America. 
The immigration of Germans from North to Central and 
South America will be furthered by treaties between the 
German Empire and the States concerned. 

We shall also be able to attract a considerable number of 
the Germans abroad — including people with capital — to a 
great German African Empire. They will be glad to come, 
if this new great colonial Empire is given large liberties and 
offers the immigrant all that he was accustomed to find in 
America. 

Further, we can give some assistance, so far as the German 
abroad, who is still a German subject, is concerned. Germany 
at the conclusion of peace must take their case in hand, and 
see to it that the enemy states have to give compensation for 
the illegal wrongs which Germans abroad have suffered at the 
hands of their governments and subjects. 

The will to stand up for the German abroad is clearly 
present in the Imperial Government. The Foreign Secretary 
gave the following answer to a question on this point:— 

In regard to damage suffered by Germans in enemy 
countries owing to measures taken by our enemies m viola- 
tion of international law, the Imperial Government regards 
as one of their most urgent duties in the negotiations for peace 



* [The German original here has "Nordamerika," an obvious print- 
er's error. — Translator.] 



20 The German Empire of Central Africa 

to work for the fullest possible indemnification of the suf- 
ferers by the enemy State. Whether the establishment or 
payment of such damage will give rise to the introduction 
of a bill in the German Parliament can presumably only be 
considered at the conclusion of the peace negotiations. 

It is clear from the tenor of this answer that the Imperial 
Government has in mind to demand, on the conclusion of 
peace, a lump sum as compensation for all the damage suffered 
by Germans abroad, and, considering the great number of 
victims, this sum is bound to reach a total of several thousands 
of millions of marks. These milliards will have been won by 
our army and will, of course, have to go to the State, and it is 
therefore to be assumed that settlement in Germany or in a 
German colony will be a condition of getting compensation. 
Possibly settlement in the territory of our allies will be 
counted as equivalent. 

Obviously, any strict compulsion must be avoided. But 
there can be no idea of compulsion, if territory of about the 
size of Brazil and four times the extent of Germany is put at 
the disposal of the Germans from abroad in C-entral Africa. 

Mittel-Afrika, with the frontiers which we would give it 
(we should constitute it by uniting the Cameroons, French 
Equatorial Africa, the Belgian Congo, German East Africa, 
British East Africa, Uganda, and great parts of Angola, with 
a surface of about 7 to 7^ million square kilometres), con- 
tained at the outbreak of war at least 20^000 white men. In 
the first year after the war, if a sensible policy is applied, it 
might immediately receive twice the number ; we might attract 
to it up to 40,000 Germans from abroad, with an average 
capital of 25,000 marks, and a further 10,000 to 20,000 Ger- 
mans as workmen, apprentices, overseers, merchants and bank 
officials. For if capital to the extent of 1,000,000,000 marks 
comes suddenly into the country, a quite different life would 
develop from that which would arise from a settlement by 
driblets. 

We could also make a good beginning with small settle- 



The German Empire of Central Africa 21 

ments in Central Africa, for instance in Angola, in certain 
districts of East Africa, and the Southern Congo,' if we took 
as our pattern the South Brazilian provinces of Santa 
Catherina and Rio Grande do Sul. There Germans work 
permanently on the land and keep healthy at from 25 to 
32 degrees of latitude south. In the coffee province of 
Brazil, San Paulo, a tropical district, Germans have to 
work in the coffee plantations even as day labourers. Angola 
lies much nearer the equator, it is true; it stretches from 
6 to 17 degrees southern latitude. But there is no doubt that 
it would be possible to develop exclusive settlements of 
German farmers in this district, as in Southern Brazil, if we 
follow the example of the Brazilian States of Parana, Santa 
Catherina and Rio Grande do Sul. These States give every 
immigrant on arrival a measured plot of land of 25 hectars, 
with house and agricultural implements as his own possession 
on deferred payment of a low purchase-price. And work 
can begin at once. 

It is true enough that there are many arguments against 
the introduction of small-holders into Africa; but we must 
make the attempt. 

A further essential for the development of real German 
world-power is a genuine policy of our own in the matter of 
raw materials, based on the principle that the raw materials 
produced in our colonies belong in the first instance to 
German industries. Hitherto our colonial economic policy 
has been in no way connected with our home policy. The 
principle did not hold good, either that the German colonies 
had primarily to buy in the German market or that colonial 
products must primarily be sent to Germany. Only as 
regards foodstuffs was the law of giving preference to home- 
grown products recognized; but colonial soil counted 
economically as foreign. That tradition must be broken 
with. We must establish it as the basis of our economic 
system that all that is needed for our industries must be grown 
on our own soil. We must only call upon the territory of 
friendly States so far as our own is inadequate. It is only 



22 The German Empire of Central Africa 

such a law as that, which can give a chance of peaceful 
development to our economic system and to the German 
element in the world. It allows the emigration of surplus 
forces to the cheap fields of supply overseas and attaches them 
to new German land, giving them a home on it. They are 
no longer compelled to wander round the world as commercial 
travellers and agents of German industries in search of a 
market. It should no longer be the aim of German economic 
policy to swell the figures of foreign trade by all sorts of petty 
artifices. We should rather arrive at establishing what are the 
needs of the population in the matter of tropical foodstufifs 
and luxuries, as well as of raw material for our industries, and 
arranging for the oversea production accordingly. What our 
own colonies cannot achieve ought to be handed over to 
friendly States under treaty. And we ought not to turn out 
as an equivalent much over the strictly necessary quantity of 
finished industrial products. It was by scraping together the 
tropical and subtropical agricultural products of all the world 
that we brought unrest into our economic system; nothing 
but regulation and ord-er and the greatest possible production 
of raw material by our own tropical agriculture will bring us 
peace in our labour, will free us from the fevered scramble of 
competition, and make the German a happy man again. 



IV.— THE OVERSEA FOUNDATIONS OF GERMAN WORLD- 
POWER 

The main anxiety of those who find it hard to reconcile them- 
selves to the idea of a great Central-African colonial Empire 
is concerned with the Congo territories,, and it is especially 
the sleeping sickness, so prevalent there, which is regarded 
as a heavy mortgage calculated to depreciate very materially 
the value of the colony. 

The Rapports sur V Administration du Congo beige again 
and again deplore the wide dissemination of sleeping sickness 



il 



The German Empire of Central Africa 23 

in many districts. In the report for 1908 it is stated that 
sleeping sickness was raging in the eastern province by Lake 
Tanganyika, that it was wide-spread in Mongalla, in the basin 
of Lake Leopold IL, on the Lukenye, on the Lower Congo, 
and in Eastern Kwango ; it was reported to have broken out 
seriously on the banks of the rivers Congo, Itimbiri, Lulongo, 
Ubangi; in Katanga, on the rivers Lualaba, Lufira, and on 
Lake Kissale. But there was none in Upper Katanga. 

The report for 191 1 establishes the fact that sleeping 
sickness was on the decrease in Lower and Central Congo, in 
certain districts of Kassai, in Manyema, and in the neighbour- 
hood of Yakoma. On the other hand, it was raging in 191 1, 
and had assumed th-e form of an epidemic, on the Semliki, 
Lake Kivu, the Kwilu and the Kwango. 

In 19 1 2 settlements were removed on the Luapula and 
the Lualaba owing to sleeping sickness; the pest had greatly 
diminished in Katanga, and the Tanganyika, the Mweru and 
the Upper Luapula sections. Yet the report still intimated 
that sleeping sickness was lying heavy on the colony. 

We must, on the other hand, not overlook and suppress the 
fact that the vast country comprises also many very healthy 
and populous districts. 

We have one source of information in the reports of the 
British Consuls about the Belgian Congo contained in 
Correspondence Respecting the Aifairs of the Congo. The 
Consul Gerald Campbell, in Boma, writes under date 
October 25, 1910: — 

The Uele [Welle] district ... is not only comparatively 
well-populated with natives of a greater intelligence than is 
generally found :n the Congo, who, long accustomed to 
trade with the Arabs, can well hold their own against all 
merchants, but it is rich in those products which attract trad- 
ers to this country. Moreover, more caravan routes exist in 
the Uele than elsewhere. 

Campbell put the total population of the Belgian Congo 
at 7^ millions. 



24 The German Empire of Central Africa 

The Consul Armstrong reported in 1910: — 

The Uele [Welle] is a densely populated country. Sleep- 
ing sickness is practically unknown, and the few cases which 
exist have been introduced from outside. . . . The various 
tribes in this district are remarkable for their superior in- 
telligence, and of these the Mangbattu, with its sub-divisions 
of Mangwele and Bangba, is the most noteworthy. 

The Azande is a warlike tribe. ... In numbers they rep- 
resent more than half the population of the entire district. 
. . . Their sultans, or chiefs, known as the Avungura — a 
name given to the ruling tribe as distinct from the ordinary 
Azande — are incomparably superior in every way to the 
ordinary native. These sultans have shown remarkable skil] 
and astuteness in dealing with the European, and some of 
them, even up till now, have maintained a sort of semi-inde- 
pendence. . . . 

Of the other tribes the Ababuas in the Rubi zone and 
the Mamvu in the Bomakandi zone are perhaps the most 
primitive. The Government has, in the case of the former 
tribe, imposed upon them as their chief an ex-sergeant of the 
public force. This man, being of another tribe (Amadis), is 
maintained in his authority by the Government, who permits 
him to keep a small body of armed men to protect his per- 
son, and, in return for the perquisities of chieftainship, he 
forces the people to work for the Government. . . . 

The Rubi and the Bomakandi are the richest zones in 
rubber. The whole of the former is dense equatorial forest, 
while the latter is forest intersected with grass plains. . . . 
The Uele-Bili is chiefly grass plain, but strips of rubber- 
bearing forests are to be found along the numerous water- 
courses which intersect the country. The Gurba-Dungu zone 
has few resources, and in this respect resembles the Upper 
Nile country. 

With the exception of the Gurba-Dungu zone, the soil 
in the Uele district is exceptionally rich, and rarely in 
Africa does one see so much food and of such great variety. 
Besides the ordinary African food, such as bananas, plantains, 
manioc, palm oil, etc., maize, rice, pea-nuts, millet, sorghum, 
potatoes, sesame oil, etc., grow in abundance. The quality of 
the maize, where the seed is carefully selected, is as good as 
the best that America can produce. Almost every kind of 
European vegetable grows with luxuriance. And the plains 
in areas where there is no tse-tse fly afford good grazing lands 
for cattle. Nothing has yet been done in the way of agri- 
cultural experiment, with the exception of rubber, but there 
is no doubt that grain, such as oats and wheat, would grow 
if carefully tended. . . . 



The German Empire of Central Africa 25 

In the Uele district slavery is rife Natives are 

bought and sold, and officials take no notice whatever of 
the fact. Indeed, it would be difficult for them to do so be- 
cause they have actually organized a thorough system of 
slavery in the Mamvu country. These people, the Mamvu 
have been handed over entirely to a few Mangbettu and 
Manguele chiefs. . . . These chiefs told me that the Mamvu 
had been given to them because they refused to work the rub- 
ber tax. 



As Armstrong further reports, most of the merchants In 
the Welle district are Greeks and Syrians from Khartum, or 
Indians from Uganda and East Africa. Ther€ are great 
difficulties about porters; few merchants can get more than 
five porters. 

Vice-consul Thurstan sent a report of a tour which he 
undertook in the Kassai district in August and September, 
1910. 

He regards the South-ern part of the Kassai district as 
suitable for European settlement in the future. But sleeping 
sickness is very prevalent. The inhabitants are Bena Lulua, 
Baluba and Kanyoka. The Bakett-e and Balolo are on 
their western borders, half-naked cannibals whose land is 
unexplored. 

The hereditary main chief of the Bena Lulua is Kalamba. 
Old Kalamba twice journeyed with Wissmann as far as 
Nyangwe. He fled before the Belgians into Portuguese 
territory; his son came back in 1907, and established himself 
at Luluaburg. 

The Baluba and Kanyoka are pastoral peoples, very much 
split up. The former often enter European service as 
workers or domestic slaves. Little is done for the country. 
There are no roads or bridges ; the paths are poor native tracks. 
The district was formerly the scene of perpetual fighting and 
slave-raids. Now it is quiet. Domestic slavery exists. 
Sleeping sickness was very rife; the great native village 
of the Bena Lulua, Mwamba Kafula, is said to have lost a 
third of its 3,000 inhabitants in five years. 

The Bakuba are forest-dwellers; they fish and hunt and 



26 The German Empire of Central Africa 

have artistic tendencies. They produce woodwork of an ex- 
cellence unapproached by any other race of the Kassai. The 
Bakuba have been slave-owners from time immemorial, and 
are only accustomed to work at their own pleasure. King 
Lukengo (Frobenius gives graphic descriptions of his court 
— Ed.) receives a commission from the Kassai Company per 
ton on all rubber collected in his country. 

Also in 19 lo the Consul Mackie undertook a journey in 
the Congo bend, of which he made an interesting report. 

He found the district round Lake Tumba thickly popu- 
lated; the villages looked prosperous according to African 
standards. He reported of the Bangala district that sleep- 
ing sickness had caused great devastation there. For a 
distance of 500 kilometres from Lulanga up the Congo to 
Bumba the missionaries only found 49 villages with a total 
population of 4,068 people in 1910 as against 50,000 in 1890. 
New Antwerp "is believed" formerly to have had 15,000 
inhabitants; only a few hundreds remain. Many decamped 
owing to sleeping sickness ; others died. 

Between the Congo and the Lopori River Mackie found 
the population very much exhausted by the methods of the 
rubber-trade. That is the home of the Bongandanga, a quar- 
relsome tribe with a bad reputation. 

The land watered by the Maringa River is inhabited by 
the tribe of the Mongo; the Boenda (Baringa) are a sub-divi- 
sion of it. They have large villages, are numerous, warlike and 
hostile. There is much sleeping sickness round Lingunda 
on the Lomako River. The Esanga (Ysenge) district on the 
Upper Maringa is thickly populated. Round Basankusu, at 
the confluence of the Maringa and the Lopori, the inhabitants 
are Mongos; they file their teeth. Mackie found these 
villages surrounded with palisades against man-eating 
leopards. Twenty men are said to have been eaten at the 
mission-station of Ikau. The forest tracks in this district are 
very good— sometimes 15 feet wide; they are kept free of 
grass by women and children. 

Round Ikau-Bokota, on the Lulongo River, the Mongos 



The German Empire of Central Africa 27 

build large villag-es and make streets ; but the villages, which 
are very numerous, are badly built and dirty. They often are 
so close to one another that they form a line several English 
miles long. 

Mackie also undertook a journey through the Aruwimi 
district. He reports the existence of many large villages 
close to Yambuya. The tribe of the Baso round Basoko is 
noted for its prov^ess, activity and industry ; the Bangalemas, 
on the tw^o banks of the Aruwimi, are great workers in iron. 
They build high, conical huts. 

In the forest between the Congo and the Aruwimi the 
Turumbu have numerous thickly populated villages. There 
is an extensive palm-oil industry among the natives; their 
pottery is famous. 

The report of the Consul Lamont dates from 1912. He 
was able to communicate the fact that there was little popula- 
tion on the banks of the Congo from Stanley Pool upstream 
to Coquilhatville. Sleeping sickness is very rife ; the women 
refuse to bear children; abortion is a common practice. 
Infant mortality is great. In Lulanga the population is said 
to have diminished from 8,000 to 1,000. Lamont describes 
the houses as poorer and more miserable than any he had 
seen in Africa. 

Of New Antwerp and Lisala he reports that the state 
labourers there had good houses, and were well fed, strong 
and contented. The physique of the Ababuas and Azandes in 
the Aruwimi and Welle districts reminded him of the Ashantis. 
They make good soldiers. There are abundant children and 
abundant food. The population is very dense everywhere 
along the main routes, except on the Aruwimi. Strawplaiting 
had been introduced into the Ababua country, and mats and 
hats were being produced. The weapons of the Aruwimi and 
Welle tribes are spear, knife, bow and arrow. Lamont says 
he saw no fire-arms in the hands of the natives. In Ibembo 
there is a considerable trade in native-grown rice; in Likati 
a large palm-oil market. 

Of the Lowa district (on the Lualaba) Lamont reports 



28 The German Empire of Central Africa 

that the natives there cultivate a great deal of rice. The 
region consists of swamps and marshes, and is under v^ater 
for nine months in the year. Even in the dry season march- 
ing is difficult. The cultivation of rice is especially active 
between Kindu and Shuka; Lamont was offered i8o kilo- 
grammes there for 7 francs. A good deal of cane sugar is 
grown, too. Sleeping sickness is little prevalent in the Lowa 
district ; the country between the Lomami and Lualaba seems 
to be free from mosquitoes. 

The report of the Vice-consul Castens also dates from 
1912. He made a tour of inspection in the Kassai and 
Sankuru district. Between Pania-Mutombo and Lubefu he 
found quite a number of villages, but all small and of no 
particular importance. Between Lubefu and Kabinda (four 
days' march) the country was beautiful, mountainous and 
well wooded. The inhabitants were Basongi; their powerful 
chief was old Lupungu in Kabinda, the friend of Wissmann. 
He ruled over 50,000 souls; his capital, Kabinda, had 3,000 
inhabitants. On the route from Lubefu to Kabinda there 
were a number of villages with up to 200 inhabitants apiece ; 
the people had abundant food and plenty of cattle. Katambe, 
on the Lubefu River (north of Kabinda), was a village with 
12,000 inhabitants; it was an English mile long and half a 
mile wide — travers-ed by a broad park-like street. The daily 
market was attended by 900 or 1,000 people, the weekly one 
by 5,000 to 6,000. Mutombo-Kachi had 2,500 inhabitants 
(Balubas); there were rifles to be seen; th-e Sultan and his 
brother had breech-loaders. There were said to be 350 guns 
there and in Katambe respectively. Kanda-Kanda contained 
1,500 souls (Kanyoka). This tribe was about 50,000 strong; 
the people made good porters. 

Kalamba lived at Luluaburg, as Thursten mentioned above. 

Castens found the Bakuba country thickly populated; 
according to his account there are 164 villages lying within a 
radius of from 20 to 30 English miles round Mushengi (in the 
Bakuba country). 

The Basongo Mino live between the Sankuru and the 



The German Empire of Central Africa 29 

Lukenye River. Castens describes them as arrogant and 
extremely idle. They are cannibals and hostile to the 
government. In April, 1912, under the leadership of natives 
from Ikela, who live north of the Lukenye, they brutally 
murdered Lieutenant Moreti, head of the post at Kole, when 
he was on his way to arrest some people who had harboured 
murderers. 

The Batelele, who live from the Sankuru to the Lomami, 
were formerly warlike and very aggressive; now they are 
peaceable and friendly to white men. They learnt a great 
deal from the Arabs, are good workmen and excellent 
agriculturists; they are, in fact, one of the most progressive 
and most useful tribes. Round Lodja and south of Katako- 
Kombe there is much sleeping sickness. There is a doctor 
stationed in Lodja. 

Castens estimated the population of the Kassai district 
at 15^ millions. 

These very instructive reports of the British Consuls are 
to some extent supplemented by the Belgian official reports. 

The white population of the Belgian Congo rose from 3,399 
persons on the ist January, 1910, to 5,465 (including about 
600 women) on the ist January, 1912, and to over 6,000 on 
the 1st January, 1914. On the ist January, 191 1, the whites 
were distributed as follows: — Boma 390, Buta (in Welle) 35, 
Coquilhatville 32, Banana ;^6, Basoko 21, Dima (on the 
Kassai) 39, Elisabethville (in Katanga) 360, fitoile du Congo 
116, Kasongo (on the Lualaba) 21, Kilo 38, Kindu 29, 
Kinshassa 69, Leopoldville 221, Lisala 21, Luebo 20, 
Luluaburg 35, Lusambo 50, Matadi 143, New Antwerp 37, 
Ponthierville 42, Sakania 48, Stanleyville 106, Thysville (on 
the railway from Matadi to Leopoldville) 56. 

As for the products of the colony the collection of self- 
grown products (rubber, copal, ivory) played the chief part 
until quite recently ; during the last few years mining came to 
the fore. Cultivation for export still plays a very small role ; 
a beginning has at last been made with the exploitation of the 
vast stock of oil-palms. 



30 The German Empire of Central Africa 

The gold fields of Kilo produced in 1910 876 kilogrammes 
of gold, in 191 2 740 kilogrammes; the output at Moto in the 
same district amounted in 1912 to 244 kilogrammes. Further, 
the yield of the mines at Haut Sele in the same year was 
63 kilogrammes of gold, and some gold mines were brought 
into working in the basin of the Gayu. Coal had been found 
on the Lukuga; in the zone of Mandoko, in the extreme 
south-east, the presence of valuable diamonds and of tin was 
discovered. 

The "Societe Internationale Forestiere et Miniere du 
Congo" had mining rights — 

1. In the Aruwimi basin over 100,000 hectars for gold, 
silver and iron; diamond mines were discovered; 

2. In Mayumbe, where deposits of bitumen, and petro- 
leum, gold, copper and iron mines were discovered, the con- 
cession amounted to 400,000 hectars; 

3. In Mayumbe in a different district where gold, silver, 
platinum, copper and iron were present; 

4. In the Kassai district where the presence of gold, 
diamonds, silver, sulphur, manganese and iron was estab- 
lished. 



The "Compagnie du Chemin de F^r du Congo Superieur 
aux Grand Lacs" discovered great masses of hematite, and in 
some places the presence of gold, in the east of the Kivu 
district. The bituminous d-eposits discovered on the Stanley- 
ville-Ponthierville Railway were estimated at ij/^ million 
tons with a proportion of 60-100 litres of heavy oil per ton. 

In Upper Katanga the diamond fields in the Kundulunga 
Mountains produced their first yield in 19 13. There were, as 
a rule, only small stones, found in the "yellow ground" near 
the surface ; many of them were very fine. The blue ground 
has not yet been exploited. The Thys-Jadit group had found 
copper to the east and north-east of Lake Mweru and tin 
near Kiambi on the Luvwa; near the Lukulu gold and tin 
had been found. 



The German Empire of Central Africa 31 

The beginnings of an industry are there, but it suffers, as 
does the whole economic development of the colony, from the 
difficulties of getting labour. It is not so much the lack of 
labourers; the Belgian Congo is in proportion as thickly 
populated as the Cameroons. And the calls for labour were 
in general less than in the Cameroons. The great evil in the 
Belgian Congo was a wrong labour legislation, which was 
quite unsuitable for Africa. According to the official Belgian 
report there occurred in Elisabethville (in Katanga), between 
the 1st December, 1912, and the ist May, 1913, no less than 
595 breaches of contract on the part of native labourers. In 
Mayumbe there were from 13 to 20 per cent, of desertions 
among the native labourers, in Matadi 15 per cent., and at 
Stanley Pool some firms had to reckon on 25 to 50 per cent. 

In spite of these difficulties the industry made progress. 
Lever Brothers (the great English soap firm) had 50 white 
men in Leverville, at the confluence of the Kwilu and the 
Kwango. The oil mills there can deal with 12,000 tons of 
fruit a year, the mills in Alberta, near Bumba, with 10,000 
tons of fruit. There are also oil-works at Elisabetha, near 
Barumbi (Aruwimi). The "Societe des Huileries du Congo 
Beige" (Lever Brothers) had as white personnel in 1912 139 
agents in the Belgian Congo, 69 Englishmen, 65 Belgians, 
I Swiss, I Frenchman, i Dutchman, 2 Norwegians. The 
number of black hands varied between 1,500 and 3,000. 

The ''American Congo Company" set up factories for the 
mechanical treatment of rubber in 191 2 in Kimpoko and Black 
River. In the same year the dockyard of the "Societe Citas" 
at Stanley Pool launched 17 ships and 60 lighters with a 
tonnage of 1,900 tons. 

In 1913 there were two furnaces in work in Katanga and 
a third in process of building. No i, in Lubumbashi, pro- 
duced between the 8th January and the 27th March, 989 tons 
of copper at 95 per cent. ; No. 2, 1,051 tons from the 7th April 
to the 9th June. The two furnaces had produced together 
from the ist January to the 30th September, 1913, 5,000 ions 



32 The German Empire of Central Africa 

of lingots. A ton of copper yielding 95 per cent, cost in 1912 
about 800 francs at the works. 

In 19 1 2 the various administrative districts reported as 
follows about the economic situation: — 

Bas Congo. — The crops were 844 tons of cocoa, 5,800 tons 
of palm-kernels, and 1,900 tons of palm-oil. The trade of 
Bomba had remained stationary. Matadi had a turnover of 
70,000 tons. The arrangements in the harbour were in- 
adequate. There were 169 trading-posts in the district with 
6,000 native hands. 

Moyen Congo had 92 industrial and trading-posts (the 
most important in Kinshassa) and two shipping-yards. The 
number of black labourers (2,700 in Leopoldville and 1,700 
in Kinshassa) was 7,450; it was insufficient. The district 
Haut Sele yielded 52 tons of rubber as against yy in 191 1, 

Kwango. — There were 85 factories on the ist January, 
1913. 700 tons of rubber and 150 tons of rubber bark were 
collected. A great number of factories were closed owing to 
the rubber crisis. Leverville, the establishment of Lever 
Brothers, lies in this district. 

Kassai. — The district suffered from the rubber crisis. It 
contained over 80 trade settlements. 

Lac Leopold IL — This district was only opened to Free 
Trade on the ist July, 191 1. Five companies were at work 
in 1912; in the second half-year they imported 200 tons of 
European goods and exported 152 tons of rubber, ivory and 
copal. 

Equateur. — In this district 21 companies had 107 factories; 
their profits amounted to over a million francs. Little rubber 
was collected, only 90 tons in the second half of 1912, but a 
great deal of copal was exported. The Busira Syndicate 
exported more than 800 tons, but only 8 tons of rubber. 

Bangala.~The district had 34 factories. Not much was 
exported, apart from 120 tons of rice from Itimbiri. There 
were a number of journeymen traders who took their wares 
from place to place in boats. 

Ubangi had 36 factories. The rubber and ivory trades 



The German Empire of Central Africa 33 

made little progress; the Ekuta section delivered 15 tons of 
copal a month. 

Stcmleyville.— This district had 51 factories. Its export 
In 1912 amounted to 105 tons of rubber, 18 tons of ivory, 
yyy2 tons of rice. The Ituri zone v^^as only opened to Free 
Trade on the ist July, 1912; its trade Increased quickly. 
Twenty-nine factories v^ere quickly opened, which in the 
second half-year exported 61 tons of rubber and 14;^ tons of 
ivory. 

In the Welle district there were 34 factories. In Welle 
Bill the number rose from 8 to 23 in six months, and in Bomo- 
kandi from o to 9. The increase diminished in 1913 owing 
to the fall In the price of rubber. 

Aruwimi. — This district had 29 factories and a number of 
travelling traders. The Lomami Company was working in 
the district. Developments progressed slowly. 

Katanga had 229 companies on the ist January, 191 3, and 
262 trading posts. 

These Belgian official reports, taken In conjunction with 
the communications of the British Consuls, give an essen- 
tially different picture of the Belgian Congo from that which 
still pervades the German press. The vast territory in its 
north-eastern part resembles the neighbouring populous 
British province of Uganda and the German district round 
Lake KIvu ; the southern part on the Kassai, Sankuru and 
Lualaba Rivers was even the home of an ancient and very 
remarkable negro civilization. The great Lunda Empire, 
between Kwango and Lualaba, the tributary states of which 
used to reach as far as Lake Mweru and Bangweolo, existed 
certainly already in the i6th century, as can be seen in 
Portuguese reports; It was still flourishing in the middle of 
the 19th century. The empire was maintained, that Is to say. 
for three centuries — a rare phenomenon in Central and South 
Africa. When the German traveller Paul Pogge visited the 
Lunda empire in 1874 its decay had already begun owing to 
the effect of European influences. 



34 The German Empire of Central Africa 

The Baluba peoples, between the Kassai and the Sankuru, 
the Kioko, who Hve to the south of them, a hard-working 
tribe, who are regarded as the descendants of the Jagga, 
who laid the ancient Congo Empire waste in the i6th century, 
are known to us from Wissmann's descriptions; Frobenius 
visited these same tribes in 1907 as well as the Bakuba to 
the north of them. All these tribes used to rank very high ; 
from the point of view of civilization the Basongo, between 
the Sankuru and the Lomami, were especially highly de- 
veloped; Wissmann was amazed at their large, populous and 
clean settlements on his first journey across Africa. 

All these territories, and especially those between Lake 
Tanganyika and the Lualaba, suffered very severely from 
Arab slave-raids. Their inhabitants were powerless without 
fire-arms against the invaders, and could not defend their 
civilization. Many of them were killed or carried off; again 
and again their plantations were destroyed and their villages 
burnt. The remnants fled before the man-hunters into the 
desert; those whom the enemy had not carried off and mur- 
dered were ravaged by smallpox. And then sleeping sickness 
came to fill the cup of misfortune. 

Between the Kassai and Sankuru and the bend of the 
Congo there live also some first-rate tribes, although naturally 
they could not develop so high and lasting a political civiliza- 
tion in this district of really primeval forest as on the southern 
and northern savannahs. The dark, over-grown, impenetrable 
forest favours dispersal. But in the actual Congo basin the 
many navigable rivers offer again sure means of communica- 
tion, and the best proof of traffic between the Congo hinter- 
land and the West Coast, reaching back into pre-European 
times, is the naturalization of American cultivated plants in 
the Congo basin. So careful a judge, therefore, as Dr. Hugo 
Marquardsen is justified in saying in his Belgian Congo: A 
Geographical Survey, in the third volume for the year 19 16 of 
Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgehieten (Reports from 
the German Protectorates) : 



The German Empire of Central Africa 35 

The human material of the Belgian Congo, both in the 
plains and m the forests, is therefore to be regarded as 
on the average, very valuable, even though particular sec- 
tions of It may still be very far removed from civilization. 
The civilizing work of Europeans among these people must 
be reckoned as fruitful and promising. 

As for the French Congo — more properly called French 
Equatorial Africa— Gabun is more or less like the Southern 
Cameroons and the parts of the Belgian territories which lie 
next to it, only with this difference, that the population of the 
Gabun coast stands at an equally high stage of development 
with that of the Niger. Just as the mouth of the Congo itself, 
so the coast districts north and south of it w^ere the goal of 
European commercial and missionary enterprise from the 
beginning of the i6th century; thus, for example, according 
to Heinrich Schurtz (see Helmolt's History of the World) 
Loango in Gabun is said to have had 15^000 inhabitants in 
1650. At any rate, the population of the Gabun coast has 
had intercourse with Europeans for centuries, and it is 
remarkable that the negroes of Loango, as Felicien Challaye 
relates (Le Congo Frangais, Paris, 1909) sent a petition to 
the Government that their taxes, which they paid very willingly, 
might be expended on the construction of roads, bridges and 
schools. Gabun possesses vast resources of timber in the 
district of the great lagoons and the Ogowe River, which is 
navigable for several hundred kilometres. Of its mineral 
resources the deposits of copper east of Brazzaville are well- 
known. 

The main part of French Equatorial Africa stretches 
northwards with the Chad territory into the Sudan; round 
Lake Chad there once existed empires whose history can be 
traced back to the year 1000 of the Christian era. The ancient 
Sultanates of Wadai and Bagirmi were states of an earlier 
Sudanese civilization. The river-district of the Logone and 
Shari has been characterized by Germans who know it as 
a second Mesopotamia. At any rate the Shari and Logone 
districts are very rich in resources. 



36 The German Empire of Central Africa 

Fr-ench Equatorial Africa is very undeveloped ; that is not 
the fault of the colony, however, but of the colonizers. 
France has been too much occupied in North Africa and 
Senegambia to have had the strength to animate the broad 
territories north of the Congo as well. There is the further 
consideration that the Chad territory and the districts Ubangi- 
Shari-Chad are the hinterlands of the Cameroon coast and 
not of Gabun. The route by the Congo and Ubangi, which 
the French use, is a very imperfect and expensive means of 
communication. 

Sleeping sickness is as widespread in French Equatorial 
Africa — apart from the northern sections — as in the Belgian 
Congo; it is indeed a very unpleasant asset of the Congo 
territories. And to fight it needs considerable financial 
means. But good success may be awaited in view of the 
present state of science, which has already got so far as to 
render the victims of the disease— especially by treatment 
with the new Salversan preparation — at any rate, completely 
without danger to their neighbours, even if they are them- 
selves past saving. Thus the risk of the further spread of 
the pest is to a great extent removed. 

And is it not possible that sleeping sickness, which is so 
rife just in the Congo basin, is to be regarded as a disease 
arising from malnutrition and bad conditions ? We are accus- 
tomed to the fact that European wars bring epidemics in their 
train, or, at least, have mostly done so; are the perpetual 
ravaging of the Congo basin by Arabs and Portuguese, the 
slave-raids and the expulsion of the inhabitants from their 
homes, the rubber atrocities of Leopold's time, likely to have 
remained without lasting influence on the population of the 
Congo? And is it not to be expected that the health of the 
people will improve again with the progress in civilization and 
development of the country? 

The Belgian Congo has from 8 to 9 million inhabitants 
(4 to the square kilometre), French Equatorial Africa has 5, 
the Cameroons 3, German East Africa 8 millions. With parts 
of Angola and portions of the British possessions which 



The German Empire of Central Africa 37 

belong to Central Africa, we shall reach a total of at least 30 
million inhabitants. 

The most valuable African territories lie, of course, in the 
bend of the Niger and south of Senegal. They are Sene- 
gambia, Guinea, the Ivory and Gold Coasts, Togo, Dahomey 
and Nigeria. These countries contain at least 32 million 
comparatively highly civilized inhabitants and they are already 
well developed. If these colonies could be united, there is 
no doubt that they would be of great importance from the 
political, economic and also military point of view. But in 
political and military value they will certainly be surpassed by 
Central Africa, which equals them in population and surpasses 
them many times over in extent of territory. 



v.— THE WHITE MAN IN CENTRAL AFRICA 

When we spoke of attracting tens of thousands of 
Germans to Central Africa we were counting, above 
all — as may be gathered from the estimate of Central Africa 
as a comparatively well-populated country, given in the 
previous chapter — on the Germans organizing the 30 million 
negro inhabitants to supply from the tropics German require- 
ments in the matter of the products of the soil, and directing 
their labour to a great end. This end is our acquisition of 
the raw materials which we lack. 

The proof that the white man can live in Central Africa 
as an official and organizer, has already been given. We can 
even assert to-day that in most parts of Central Africa the 
white man, and even women and children, can quite well stand 
four to five years on end, and that he will keep his health, if 
he has the opportunity of recuperating his strength every two 
or three years in a temperate climate. It only remains for 
us to show that Central Africa can very soon give a home to 
50,000 Germans, and after a few years even to 100,000. 

We must look at tropical agriculture from, three points 
of view: — 



38 The German Empire of Central Africa 

1. It is a question of exploiting the existing resources of 
the soil and of the great forests (timber, oil-palms, rubber) 
with the help of the negroes; 

2. Those kinds of native cultivation which yield pro- 
ducts for export are to be encouraged; 

3. We must pay attention to cultivation by Europeans 
in plantations and medium and small holdings. 

Our previous colonial policy had not yet determined on a 
fixed goal, and had not done so chiefly because our colonial 
system stood separate from our home system. We shov^ed 
no favour to our own colonial products through special tariffs 
nor any favour either to German imports into the colonies. 
Because we claimed the Open Door from England, we had to 
allow the Open Door in our own colonial possessions, and that 
was why our colonial agriculture made but laborious progress 
and was perpetually suffering from some set-back. We are 
not here advocating a policy of colonial Protection, which 
would favour our own colonial raw material by exempting it 
from a tariff imposed upon all other tropical raw material 
imported into Germany. That would result in a rise in the 
prices of raw material, which is just what we want to prevent 
by a colonial policy of our own. On the other hand, we must 
keep clearly before our eyes that the .tropical agriculture of 
South-East Asia and India has at its disposal vaster human 
material than any other portion of the world. The Indian 
and Chinese coolies are also so easily satisfied that they are 
content with the lowest of wages. Foreign merchants know 
the rapid rise of East-Asiatic rubber cultivation. The other 
rubber countries of the world could not keep pace because 
South-East Asia could undersell all competitors, thanks to its 
abundant masses of cheap labour. 

It would be quite wrong if the German rubber industries 
tried to draw only on South-East Asia as being the country 
of cheapest production. It would be more profitable to us 
if they gave the preference to territories of more expensive 
production, provided these countries were in a position to 



The German Empire of Central Africa 39 

consume the more expensive products of the German indus- 
tries. In other words, the German colonies and the alHed 
states which produce raw material must give a preferential 
tariff to German industrial products. Then the German 
Empire would also be in a position to give preference to their 
raw materials. If such a well-balanced preferential policy as 
that is carried out, our colonial Empire and the allied states 
which produce raw material will show steady development. 
Our plantation and farm work would then have quite new 
prospects. 

Hitherto many colonial economists — especially the official 
ones — have been inclined to prefer negro cuUivation to the 
policy of plantations and farms. They dreamed of a develop- 
ment something like that of the English Gold Coast colony, 
where black farmers and landowners produce up to 50,000 
tons of cocoa for export. There are black millionaires in 
Accra, who keep white chauffeurs, black lawyers and black 
hotel-proprietors with white servants. The conditions in the 
Gold Coast and the neighbouring territories are certainly con- 
vincing evidence of the will to live well and advance on the 
part of the natives; but it cannot be the object of German 
colonial policy to produce similar conditions in German Mittel- 
Afrika. We must not increase the value of the soil in Mittel- 
Afrika by our own labours in order to give the negro the 
pleasure of a higher rent for his land. The native shall, of 
course, share in the increased value which his land has got 
owing to the white immigration, but it would be absurd to let 
him reap all the advantage. We need have no fear that it 
will be to the disadvantage of the native, if we claim land 
for white immigration in the future in far greater measure 
than before the war. The chief objection to the system of 
plantations and farms is met, when it is proved that for a 
native village 2,000 hectars of land in a colony that is flourish- 
ing, owing to means of communication and European admini- 
stration, is more valuable than 10,000 in an African village 
under native black rule. 



40 The German Empire of Central Africa 

In future, then, we shall not restrict plantations and farms 
as before the war, but favour this policy, while we need not 
at the same time do away with native cultivation ; but just as 
at home we have large, medium and small holdings, so a wise 
policy will have to work for the same variety in our colonial 
Empire. 

At the same time we shall have, as far as possible, to set 
aside for the good of the community districts in which it is a 
question of collecting self-grown products. In the Cameroons 
great stress was laid on each native village keeping its oil- 
palms; the anxiety of the Government went so far as to 
prevent the natives selling palm-lands. But we can never 
arrive in this way at a proper utilization of the great riches 
of the country. Oil-palm districts would have to become state 
property. The Government would lease them to white com- 
panies, and would lay down what proportion of the yield 
should be handed over to the native villages, which have 
hitherto had a usufruct of the forests. Thus the natives will 
have their rights, but at the same time the rights of the com- 
munity will be safeguarded. 

There are millions and millions of oil-palms in Central 
Africa. This source of wealth has hardly been exploited at 
all. In 1912 the Cameroons exported 16,000 tons of palm- 
kernels and 3,593 tons of palm-oil ; French Equatorial Africa 
something over 500 tons of kernels and a little over 100 tons 
of oil; the export of the Belgian Congo amounted to 6,821 
tons of kernels and 1,989 tons of oil. The yield of palm-oil 
from these vast territories, comprising 4)^ million square kilo- 
meters with their unbroken forests and huge resources, 
amounted then only to about 23,300 tons of palm-kernels and 
5,700 tons of oil. That is extraordinarily little when one 
thinks that British Southern Nigeria, with its 208,600 square 
kilometres, exported in 1912 175,000 tons of palm-kernels to 
the value of ^3,109,981 sterling (over 62 million marks), and 
83,000 tons of palm-oil to the value of £1,854,384 sterling 
(over 371^ million marks). Compared with these results, the 
yield of the f^reat Congo territories and of the Cameroons is 



The German Empire of Central Africa 41 

infinitesimal; it would surely be an easy task to bring the 
return at least up to the standard of Nigeria. If Mittel-Afrika 
were only to produce palm-kernels and oil to the value of loo 
million marks, several thousand white men would be able to 
find occupation in the exploitation of its vast existing quanti- 
ties of oil-palms. And let us not forget that, as we mentioned 
above, Lever Brothers employ 50 white men in their settle- 
ment at Leverville in the Belgian Congo, which can deal with 
12,000 tons of fruit a year. 12,000 tons of fruit represent 
about 2,000 tons of oil and 3,000 tons of kernels. The pro- 
duction of 175,000 tons, therefore, might give occupation to 
50x60=3,000 white men. 

We should have to follow the example of the Northern 
Railway in the Cameroons in the treatment of the great exist- 
ing quantities of oil-palms in Central Africa. There the oil- 
palms are thinned and roads made through them; light rail- 
ways are laid to carry the fruit to the factories. Similar 
works can be carried out on the Congo, the Kassai and the 
smaller rivers, and also along the railways. Very often it is 
enough to clear ground round the existing trees, and the most 
beautiful oil-palm plantations are there ready-made. 

The existence of valuable timber in the tropical forests 
is almost more important than the wealth of oil-palms. The 
firm of J. F. Miiller and Son, in Hamburg, published a most 
interesting report on the subject at the end of 1914, part of 
which was printed in the Tropenpflanzer (Tropical Planter). 
I should like to quote the following : — 

The greatest reservoirs in the world of tropical timber 
valuable for industrial purposes are to be found in the forests 
which spread over West and Central Africa. The most im- 
portant country for the suppy of timber before the war was 
Gabun, the part of French Equatorial Africa which ran be- 
tween the Cameroons and the Belgian Congo; these terri- 
tories produced from two-thirds to three-quarters of all the 
African timber which we imported, includmg the okoume 
wood, which was indispensable for our furniture, paluig, and 
cigar-box trades, a wood which is otherwise only found in 
Spanish Guinea. The German demand for this wood amounted 
to 100,000 tons. Mahogany, too, and many other valuable 



42 The German Empire of Central Africa 

woods can be cut to any extent. The vast forest resources in 
the great lagoons of Fernan Vaz, Mayumba, Iguela, Sette- 
Cama, and also in the Loango and Kwilu districts are scarcely 
touched. There are equally huge stocks of timber in the 
Cameroons and in the Belgian Congo. 

In spite of large export figures the trade in timber is still 
in its infancy. Only a small percentage of the available kinds 
of timber are exported and only such as stand within a few 
hundred yards of possible water transport. All the rest are 
absolutely untouched, and among these are all the heavy 
woods which would be excellently adapted for ship-building 
and for use in bridges, harbours and wood pavements. Such 
building woods we used to draw from Australia and Further 
India. Mittel-Afrika can provide us with a full supply, if 
saw-mills are set up there to deliver these heavy kinds of 
wood in a marketable state for transport. 

There are vast prospects open to the timber trade in 
Mittel-Afrika; it could yield handsome profits to a great 
number of white immigrants. 

The utilization of the great existing quantities of rubber 
in Central Africa has been adversely affected by the develop- 
ment of the plantations in East Asia, but by no means crippled. 
The success of the French Company **Sangha Forestiere," 
which owns property in French Central Africa, and in the 
new districts of the Cameroons, and whose rubber has been 
reckoned as equal to the best Para, shows that C-entral-African 
rubber can hold its own against any competition, if it is merely 
a question of pure quality and the collection is not too costly. 
The rubber trade could furnish a living to a great number of 
white traders. 

When we have won our way to our fixed goal — the most 
perfect incorporation possible of Mittel-Afrika in our home 
economic system, an incorporation which means that we 
regard the self -grown wealth of the country as destined for the 
community, and look at the rest of the soil of Africa as some- 
thing which may be improved and increased in value by our 
labour and from which we are entitled, provided we respect 



The German Empire of Central Africa 43 

the rights of the original inhabitants, to draw according to 
our needs, by the right which our labour confers, then we shall 
have laid to a great extent the foundation of a prosperous 
tropical economic system. All that is wanted is that we 
should approach the question of labour and of the natives in 
a somewhat different spirit from that which we have hitherto 
shown. 

Up till now our system of plantations and our railway 
construction have caused great upheavals among the black 
population, have upset ancient social customs, uprooted in 
part the new generation and depopulated whole districts. It 
was especially the missionaries who made bitter complaints 
of this effect of the white colonization of Africa. The com- 
plaints were quite intelligible. The missions had been in the 
country long before the administration and the settlers; they 
had brought the region round the mission to a high state of 
civilization by long labour. And now they had to see, at the 
arrival of officials, officers, and above all, of settlers, the field 
of their labour emptied, the young men pouring into the 
plantations and railway work, just as at home the younger 
country population pours into the towns. And all the com- 
plaints which we have heard at home about the rural exodus 
re-echoed in Africa, too. In Africa, as at home, it was noted 
quite accurately that in general the changes brought little 
blessing to the people. Just as the town-dweller, as opposed 
to the agricultural labourer, gained nothing except in externals, 
which he had often to pay for with his health, so the labourer 
on the railway or on a plantation in Africa took little back 
with him after long labour to his native village but a few 
gaudy rags and diseases, and any friend of the people was 
bound to feel sick at heart. 

There is no doubt that all these evils will be multiplied 
as soon as a greater number of white settlers come into the 
country. But there is no help for it ; Mittel-Afrika too must 
go through the melting-pot, and the fortune of future gener- 
ations must emerge from the sufferings of the present 
generation. 



44 The German Empire of Central Africa 

A strong agitation has been conducted on the strength of 
the high death-rate on plantations and in railway construction. 
But the calculations, according to which, for example, up to 
lo per cent, of the imported labourers in the Cameroons are 
said to have died, have been made very one-sidedly. This is 
proved incontestably by accurate statistics. The Government 
of the Cameroons wished to have no labour contracts of more 
than one year's duration. Sometimes the labourers were only 
six months at work. Supposing 50 men in 1,000 died in this 
period, it was calculated that this represented 10 men in 
every hundred in the year, i. e., 10 per cent. But statistics 
of the death-rate at railway construction, among such labourers 
as could be kept for 12 months or longer, have shown that 
the mortality is high only in the earlier months and then sinks 
rapidly. Supposing 50 men in 1,000 died in the first six 
months, the next six months did not show the same figures, 
but a death-rate of only 20, and in the third half-year only 
10 or less. 

The diminution of the death-rate is due to various causes. 
In the first place it can be proved that many sick, weakly 
and underfed people used to come to work on the railways. 
The chiefs in the interior used not to supply their strong 
subjects, when the Government demanded labour, but the poor 
of the villages and the countryside, the ill-fed and sickly. 
The weakest fell victims at once to the unaccustomed coast 
climate; the others recovered with good food and regular 
work. 

It must not be forgotten that the state of health of the 
native African population is generally bad. The native villages 
even in the neighbourhood of Government stations and mis- 
sions are by no means idyllic homes of healthy, happy human 
beings. Disease and misery are rife, and fear of the chiefs, 
who are often cruel tyrants over their subjects; infant 
mortality is high, and where the mission or Government doctor 
does not intervene with beneficent efifect, death reaps a rich 
harvest. The advent of Europeans has, without any doubt, 
had one good result — that with the colonists more doctors 



The German Empire of Central Africa 45 

have come into the country, and so many a negro who would 
have died in his village may have become a healthy man on the 
plantation or railway work. 

But in spite of all this the consequence of the advent of 
a great number of Europeans, with their demand for land and 
for the products of the land, and especially for labour, will 
be much distress among the native population. There will 
be great shiftings of population, with a multiplication of all 
the inconveniences which we have seen in the past in the 
Cameroons and in East Africa. Yet if we have once come 
to the decision that our oversea German stock is no longer 
to be "culture-manure" (Kidturdiinger) for America and the 
British colonies, we must overcome these difficulties; and 
we shall be able to master them. 

Provided then that the Government of German Mittel- 
Afrika will really carry out a policy of supplementing our 
home economic system by the African one, and will ensure 
this speedy development of the new colony by attracting white 
men to it, 6,000 white men will soon be able to make a good 
lucrative living in the oil-palm, wood and rubber business, as 
organizers, agents, buyers, directors of saw-mills, and from 
investment in the oil and rubber industry. Up to a thousand 
white men can be employed in the transport of the various 
self-grown products. 

If we really mean to do so, we are bound to succeed in 
inducing 10 million out of the 30 million negroes of Central 
Africa to cultivate oil-bearing products, such as earth-nuts, 
sesame, and rhizinus, as well as cotton, maize and rice for 
export. If 1,000 such cultivators provide one white trader 
with the means of livelihood, ten millions of them represent 
a living for 10,000 white men. 

There are great prospects, especially, for the cultivation of 
rice in Africa. The low ground of the great Central-African 
rivers is pre-eminently suitable for the cultivation of rice, as 
is proved by the great rice-fields which the Arabs created 
between the Lualaba and Lomami in the Eastern Belgian 
Congo, and the idea that the glossina palpalis, the disseminator 



46 The German Empire of Central Africa 

of sleeping sickness, finds an excellent breeding ground in the 
rice-fields is mere prejudice. 

Finally, in addition to the work of white men in organizing 
the collection of the self-grown products of the soil and the 
fruits of native cultivation for export— in which work, with 
various side-occupations, from 15,000 to 20,000 white men 
could find employment— the activity of the white men them- 
selves on plantations and farms must be considered. We must 
leave aside, in the first instance, the planting industry and look 
at live-stock rearing. 

Cattle-breeding in Central Africa is capable of very great 
development; we must first take into consideration for the 
purpose the wide high-lying plains. These now carry 10 
million head of cattle (with 6 million cows) and 40 million 
sheep and goats. That is extraordinarily few if one com- 
pares the vast stocks of cattle in India. In British India, 
without Bengal, there were estimated in 1911-12, iii^ million 
cattle (28 million cows), 23 million sheep and 28>4 million 
goats. India contains 4,667,280 square kilometres. Central 
Africa 7j4 millions. It is undeniable that Africa has, over an 
equal area, just as good cattle-lands as India. The only 
difference, though it is a great and vital one, is in population. 
Central Africa has 30 millions as against the 320 millions in 
India. But Australia shows that even a small population can 
produce a great head of cattle. The sVz million inhabitants 
(not counting the natives, who are not to be taken into 
account) of the Australian Federation and of New Zealand 
who inhabit, roughly, 8 million square kilometres, had in 1912 
in round figures 13)4 million head of cattle (with only 2^ 
million cows) and 107 miUion sheep. Central Africa, with 
its 6 million cows, is far in advance of Australia ; the breed- 
ing of 30 million head of cattle and more should not be difficult 
and will certainly take place, if white colonists take it in hand. 
Among the Central-African negroes there are good cattle- 
breeders, such as the Masai in British and German East 
Africa, the Wagogo, Wataturu, Watussi and Warundi in 
<^erman East Africa, the peoples in the districts round the 



The German Empire of Central Africa 47 

Central- African Lakes in the Belgian Congo and Uganda, the 
Fulbe in the Northern Cameroons, and the tribes of the French 
Sudan. But the cattle-breeding of the negroes suffers from 
the fact that the cattle are tribal property or by native custom 
the possession of the chief; the right of private property is 
not clearly enough developed. That is often a hindrance to 
vigorous breeding. A numerous white population would pro- 
duce a change for the better in that respect. 

Sheep-farming for wool offers a special field under certain 
circumstances to the white immigrant, as it has been already 
taken up with some success in British East Africa in the 
East-African "rift" at an elevation of about 1,500 metres. 
There are similar districts in German East Africa round 
Kondoa Irangi, Iringa, in Uhha, Urundi, and Ruanda, also 
in the Northern Cameroons. In 191 1 British East Africa 
produced 169,000 marks' worth of wool. 

An increase in cattle-breeding means an increased export 
of hides. German East Africa exported hides in 1913 alone 
to the value of 5^ million marks; Mittel-Afrika would soon 
achieve a figure many times as great, and hundreds of white 
men could find employment in the industry. 

The development of cattle-breeding would be a blessing 
for Central Africa. In the forest districts the lack of meat 
among.the natives is so great that they will pay any price for 
the much-desired food, and, if they can get it in no other 
way, will become cannibals, not from any preference for 
human flesh, but because they can get no other meat. In the 
Southern Cameroons and in the Sanga forest the people of 
my caravan devoured herons and "flying dogs," and fought 
for them; monkey flesh is a dainty in those parts. Enter- 
prising Haussa traders drive cattle in the Cameroons from 
the high northern parts to the forest villages, where they have 
a rapid sale at high prices. The breeding of large cattle is, 
of course, impossible in the forest districts ; but as soon as 
Central Africa is opened up by railways, it will be possible to 
bring cattle and meat from the rich grass-lands into the 



48 The German Empire of Central Africa 

forests. In that way European firms will have an excellent 
means of attracting the forest population to the districts 
where they want them. 

There is no n-eed to go further into the activities of large 
settlements; they have already justified their existence and 
developed a great export trade in the Cameroons and East 
Africa. S-ettlements with an ample European personnel will 
develop successfully, when the labour difficulty has been over- 
come and the home and colonial Governments take pains to 
protect them, as far as possible, from the cut-throat competi- 
tion of South-East Asia. 

We have also had medium-sized plantations for tobacco, 
cocoa, kokos-palms and cotton in East Africa and the 
Cameroons; we even coquetted with the idea of groups of 
small-holders, forming as far as possible close corporations, 
in East Africa on Mount Meru and Kilima-njaro. After the 
war it will have to be one of our chief aims to carry on these 
beginnings, and to extend them to other suitable districts, 
while preserving the German character of the settlements. 
There must spring up in this great German Africa self-con- 
tained centres of healthy German life, with German schools 
and churches, and, if possible, a permanent population. It 
is only so that we shall arrive at a lasting domination of those 
great territories. 

The small farmer of South-West Germany and the middle 
West has been admittedly the most successful colonist ; he has 
done wonders by his own labour in the sub-tropical districts 
of Australia, South Africa and South America, up to 25 
degrees of latitude and even higher. If we can attract some 
thousands of these people to Mittel-Afrika we shall have 
a splendid stock for the starting of small holdings. We 
might think of settling such people, say, in Angola between 
10 and 17 degrees southern latitude. We shall have to try 
whether the high-lying districts on Lakes Tanganyika and 
Nyassa might also be employed for such settlements. 
Possibly the south of German East Africa and Mozambique 
might be suitable, too. At any rate, after the war a serious 



The German Empire of Central Africa 49 

attempt must be made to create an agricultural population in 
our chief colony. We shall be able to draw the necessary 
men of tried worth from South America and Australia, if we 
purge our new colonial policy of all petty officialdom, and if 
the system of small holdings is modelled on that of Southern 
Brazil, where the settlers are given on arrival measured plots 
of land, simple houses and agricultural implements. 

If we mention now the great mineral wealth in Central 
Africa, especially in the Belgian Congo; if we bear in mind 
the great possibilities of communication which the innumerable 
streams in the Congo basin afford ; if we think of the influx 
of traders, workmen, hotel-keepers, bank-officials; if we 
picture the 6,000 officials and officers whom the great area 
will need, the clergy, schoolmasters, lawyers, doctors, 
engineers, railway, post and telegraph officials, then we see 
what an overwhelming abundance of possibilities of liveli- 
hood Mittel-Afrika will afford. It will be easy for even a 
hundred thousand white men to make a living there in a 
few years. 



W.-MITTEL-AFBIKA AS A FACTOR IN THE ECONOMIC 
STRUGGLE 

We have shown that it is possible to accommodate at 
least 50,000 white men in Mittel-Afrika in quite a short 
time; 40,000 of these are to be men with some capital. If we 
take an average of only 25,000 marks per head, that gives us 
an influx of capital of a thousand million marks in round 
figures. In addition men with big schemes will be attracted 
and firms from foreign countries ; the state-coffers will be filled 
up afresh. A strong economic life will immediately develop 
in Mittel-Afrika. And we are justified in expecting that an 
influx of private and state capital to the extent of 
1,250,000,000 or 1,500,000,000 marks will immediately brmg 
in its train at least an equal amount of commercial capital from 
home and from neutral countries. 



50 The German Empire of Central Africa 

According to official figures, about 350 million marks of 
commercial capital and some 80 million marks of private 
capital were employed in our African colonies in 191 3. The 
result was a foreign trade on th-e part of these colonies of 
286 million marks for that year, 142 million marks in imports 
and 144.14 millions in exports. If 3,000 million marks are 
employed in Mittel-Afrika instead of those 430 millions, 
surely the exports, as soon as all the necessary conditions 
are there, will rise rapidly to seven times the I44-I4 million 
marks, and the imports in the same proportion. 

Mittel-Afrika with 40,000 men, possessed of capital to 
organize native labour, with 10,000 small-holders, and, in 
addition, 6,000 officials, officers and non-commissioned officers 
for the black colonial army, would be an economic entity with 
which every country would have to reckon. 

Mittel-Afrika, South America and Mexico would make our 
industries quite independent of the British rubber districts 
in South-East Asia. We should procure rubber at such a 
price that the produce of these territories could hold its own 
against the competition of the Malay States ; in return they 
would have to give preferential treatment to our rubber 
manufactures. 

Before the war we needed 600 million marks' worth of 
oil-bearing products a year. As British West Africa (mainly 
Nigeria) provided us with 90% million marks' worth of palm- 
kernels alone in 1913, and 8>^ million marks' worth of palm- 
oil, Mittel-Afrika, which is far larger and infinitely richer in 
oil-palms, must be able in a very few years to supply at least 
100 million marks' worth of palm-kernels and palm-oil, if we 
turn our attention to it. All that is needed is that the obstacles 
to the exploitation of the stocks already there should be got 
rid of. In the case of other oil-bearing products, such as 
earth-nuts, sesame, cotton-seed, copra, elipe and shi nuts, 
Mittel-Afrika will certainly be able to supply us from native 
small holdings with 20 million marks' worth, and considerably 
more after a few years of vigorous work. 

All the same only a fraction of our needs would be satisfied 



The German Empire of Central Africa 51 

by this. In order to cover the balance we should have to call 
on Russia, South and Central America, Hungary and the 
Balkan States. In 1913 Russia supplied us with oil-bearing 
products to the value of 58 million marks, the Argentine with 
over 100 million marks' worth, and Austria-Hungary and 
Roumania together with 14 million marks' worth. If we add 
the Dutch Indies, from which we import to the extent of 
50 million marks, we arrive at a total value of 222 million 
marks, and, with the anticipated imports from Mittcl-Afrika, 
of 350 million marks. It is only necessary for us to assist the 
development of these territories by giving them preferential 
treatment, in return for which they would grant our oil 
industries a special tariff for the oils which they require for 
table-consumption, for manufacturing purposes and for 
vegetable fatty foods, and we should be independent of Great 
Britain and the United States in the matter of oil-bearing 
products. 

Let us consider the question of Hhre-shiifs. Our most 
important supply of flax has hitherto come from Russia; we 
got hemp from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Italy. ^lexico 
supplied us with pita-fibre; in the matter of ramie and sisal 
fibre, etc., only German East Africa can make us independent. 
For jute our dependence on India has been a heavy burden. 
But other vegetables fibres, which are procurable from Mexico, 
South America and Central Africa, might well be used as 
substitutes for this. 

We needed 382 million marks' worth of skins and hides, 
not counting the very high re-exports, and here we can cer- 
tainly get on without the Anglo-Saxons. Russia with Finland 
and Austria-Hungary alone supplied us to the extent of 100 
million marks. The Argentine sold us 74 million marks' 
worth; Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, other South 
American States and Mexico had a share of over 55 million 
marks in our imports. Denmark again, the Netherlands, 
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Spam and 
Turkey sent us nearly 70 million marks' worth of skms and 
hides. If we cultivate these connexions and develop MitteU 



52 The German Empire of Central Africa 

Afrika vigorously, we can do without any imports from 
France, Italy, Great Britain or North America. 

Austria-Hungary, Russia, South America and Mittel- 
Afrika can supply our needs in the matter of tannin; we can 
get timber in ample measure from Russia, Austria-Hungary, 
Roumania, Sweden, Norway, Mexico and Mittel-Afrika. On 
the other hand, it will be extremely difficult to make ourselves 
independent of the Anglo-Saxons in the matter of cotton 
and wool. 

The United Stat-es and Great Britain possess a world- 
monopoly in the production of cotton. Of the world-crop in 
1913-14, 21^ million bales were of Anglo-Saxon production, 
y)i million came from other countries, Brazil, China, Russian 
Asia and Asia Minor. The production of cotton in the 
German colonies was infinitesimal, in spite of all the labour 
expended on it; it did not even amount to 3,cxx) tons, while 
Germany needs a supply of 470,000 tons. Even th-e whole 
of Mittel-Afrika will hardly be able to supply in the near 
future more than 10,000 to 20,000 tons, however great an 
effort is made, and it would have to he counted as waste of 
money and effort, if great sums of money and a large force 
of labour were again devoted to the promotion of our own 
cotton cultivation. It is far more important to exploit the 
vast resources in oil-palms and timber in Central Africa and 
to create monopolies of our own, by an intelligent use of 
which we could force the Anglo-Saxons to supply us with 
goods, in which they have a monopoly, at a moderate price. 
We might, nevertheless, try to increase the cultivation of 
cotton in Nearer Asia (40,000 tons), in Brazil (70-80,000 
tons), and in Peru; but it appears to be impossible for us to 
become in this matter independent of the Anglo-Saxons. 

The prospects in the wool market appear somewhat more 
favourable. We need 370 million marks' worth of sheep's 
wool; the Argentine, Uruguay and Chile export about 250 
million marks' worth. In 191 3 they supplied us with wool 
to the value of 120 million marks. It does not s^em outside 
the bounds of possibility that they should raise their exports 



The German Empire of Central Africa 53 
to Germany to the amount of 200 million marks. And we 
ought to succeed with the help of South America in freeing 
ourselves partially, at any rate, from the Anglo-Saxon yoke. 
As^ regards imports of vegetable and animal food-stuffs, 
there is no doubt that we can short-circuit the Anglo-Saxon 
with the help of our allies, Russia and South America. 
Russia, the Argentine and Roumania can easily supply the 
quantity of wheat which we used to buy from the United 
States and Canada. We can get barley from Russia and 
Austria-Hungary, oats from Russia and the Argentine, maize 
from the Argentine, Roumania, Russia and Central Africa. 
Our imports of rice can fall off for a time and be replaced by 
tapioca, shredded barley and groats, until Mittel-Afrika is in 
a position to send us enough. Even before the war the 
countries which supplied us with legumens were Russia, 
Roumania and Austria-Hungary. We were very dependent 
on Italy, France, Belgium and Holland for vegetables. 
Holland and Belgium can remain as our sources of supply; 
our own production of vegetables must be increased. For the 
import of fruit, figs, raisins and almonds we can rely on 
Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, Turkey and Spain. 

As regards luxuries we can get tobacco from Greece, 
Turkey, Bulgaria, the Dutch Indies and Brazil; coffee we 
draw from Brazil, Venezuela and Central America in 
abundance. Mittel-Afrika can send us some 8,000 tons of 
cocoa; the production of this must and can be rapidly extended. 
Brazil, too, Ecuador, the Republic of Dominica and Venezuela, 
which sent us 24,500 tons in 1913, will provide their share. We 
can approximately cover our demand of 50,000 to 55,000 tons 
without drawing on British territories. 

We used to get meat and animal fat, especially the latter, 

to a great extent from foreign countries ; the Anglo-Saxons 

,had little share in our supply of meat. On the other hand 

tthe United States used to provide us with 112 million marks' 

worth of lard and 21 million marks' worth of margarine. The 

pig-breeding industry of the United States was the largest 



54 The German Empire of Central Africa 

in the world in 1913, with over 61 million head of pigs. 
Germany came a bad second with 2^)6 million, Austria- 
Hungary stood third with 14 million, Russia fourth with 
I2>^ million head. There is no substitute for the American 
supply of lard. We should have to make more extensive 
use of vegetable oils, and try to give preference to the fattening 
of pigs in Russia, Hungary and the Balkan States. 

Our dependence on the supplies of mineral raw materials 
from the United States and the British colonies is an especially 
sore point, and our chief lack is copper. In 1913 the United 
States sent us 294 million marks' worth of this metal; in 
1912 we took no less than 177,600 tons of her total pro- 
duction, which amounted to 566,500 tons. It appears to be 
almost impossible to satisfy our demand from other sources 
of supply. Mexico sent us only 73,000 tons of copper in 
1913, and Spain 58,000 tons. It is doubtful whether so speedy 
an increase in the Mexican output as to satisfy a great part 
of our demand is possible; and we cannot build exaggerated 
hoi>es on the copper yield of German South- West Africa and 
the Congo districts (Katanga). But in our stores of potash we 
have the means ready at hand to force the United States to 
supply us on acceptable terms. 

Finally, we must not forget that in 191 1 the United States 
and the British Empire produced no less than 559,284 kilo- 
grammes of the gold output of the world, which amounted to 
695^340 kilogrammes. 

If we take a survey of the situation in the light of the 
above-mentioned figures, it stands out clearly that our struggle 
for a position as an independent economic World-Power and 
for freedom from the Anglo-Saxons is by no means hope- 
less. Of course, there must be a beginning to the struggle, 
and that can only be by the definite assertion of a strong 
far-reaching colonial policy. We must avow to the world that 
we mean to be no longer the "poor guests and parasites" 
(Zaungaste und Freitischler) of the Anglo-Saxons. We must 
play our trump card of Mittel-Afrika. Its value lies not in 



The German Empire of Central Africa 55 

itself but in the way it is played. If we state to-day that 
we mean to have the Belgian and French Congo, as connecting 
territories between our old West-African and East-African 
possessions, and at the same time keep calculating what "new 
burdens" we shall have to assume, keep talking about sleeping 
sickness and "swamps," the card we play is valueless. It is 
only if we lay stress on the fact that with Mittel-Afrika, in 
conjunction with Germanism overseas, we mean to lay the 
foundation of a real world-policy, that this card in our hand 
becomes a decisive winning card. And by it we tear North 
and South America asunder, we make its effect felt in India, 
Australia and East Asia, and attract the attention of the Arab 
peoples of North Africa. 

German Mittel-Afrika, if demanded by us for a great 
colonial policy with far-reaching aims, will force South 
America to come to a decision. If it wants, in spite of Mittel- 
Afrika, to cling to the Anglo-Saxons, then the cry must ring 
out among Germans: German Mittel-Afrika, the Arabs, the 
Turks and Mitt el-Euro pa! You Germans in America who 
wish to remain German, pour into Africa and seek your 
livelihood among Germany's allies! Our object is to stand 
wholly and entirely on our own feet. But South America 
will not desire such a development, because it cannot desire it. 
Mittel-Afrika would be so powerful a factor in the great 
economic world-struggle, owing to its political importance and 
to the economic influence which we and our allies could give 
it, that it could not be disregarded by anyone, least of all by 
South America. Neither must we forget the great part which 
the Arabs have played in Central Africa. If they were 
induced to devote themselves, their funds and their adherents, 
to the service of the German cause, it would thereby gain a 
great push on from this quarter as well, and would win 
sympathy as far as the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Even 
if the whole world should range itself against us, there are 
mighty slumbering forces in the idea: MitteUEuro pa— Mittel- 
Afrika. 



56 The German Empire of Central Africa 

VII.— THE ORGANIZATION OF GERMAN MITTEL-AFRIKA 

As one must build on existing foundations, we will start 
from the actual economic situation before the war in the 
four chief districts of Central Africa (German East Africa, 
French Equatorial Africa, the Belgian Congo and the 
Cameroons). 

We can lay it down as an axiom that the economic and 
financial position of the two German colonies was very satis- 
factory. But we will give a few figures for the benefit of 
those who have no accurate information on the subject. 

German East Africa had 1,062 km. of railway in running 
order; large steamers with a total tonnage of 1,150 tons pHed 
on the 620 miles length of Lake Tanganyika. The white 
population had risen to 6,000 persons. The area under plan- 
tations was 106,292 hectars, of which 56,753 hectars were 
productive. Foreign trade had swollen to a value of 89 
million marks; the actual revenue of the colony amounted 
to more than 16 million marks. It could itself find more 
than GYs million marks for the interest on railway loans, and 
was engaged on the construction of an important new line of 
communication 400 km. long. The customs brought in some 
55^ million marks. 

The Cameroons had long remained behind, as they were 
ill-provided with means of communication. But the colony 
had a trade of 64 million marks, revenues of its own of more 
than II million marks, and its financial appearance was 
thoroughly sound. In the budget for 1914 a sum of 1,565,000 
marks was introduced for the construction of roads and 
bridges alone. 

Germany only gave the two colonies subsidies for the 
military administration, which amounted to an annual total 
of 3 to 3>^ million marks. 

In comparison with the clear and lucid financial appearance 
presented by the German colonies, that of the Belgian Congo 
and of French Central Africa can only be described as 
confused and complicated. The latter has a general and a 



The German Empire of Central Africa 57 

local budget. In the Budget General there was a gross deficit 
of 1,881,017.75 francs in the years 1906-1909. By the budget 
reform of 1910 the revenues were raised; in 1910 and 191 1 
881,017.75 francs of the deficit of the previous years could 
be met, and a further 707,258.69 francs put into the Gaisse 
de Reserve, from which the whole contents of i million francs 
had been taken in the years of deficit. On the 30th June, 
1 91 2, the local budgets of Gabun, the Central Congo and 
Ubangi-Shari also showed balances of from 25,000 to 221,000 
francs and a surplus was expected in the Chad district. But 
this was only an apparent surplus in the local budgets; they 
received subsidies from the General Budget in 1912 as follows: 
Gabun 1,200,000, Central Congo 850,000 and Ubangi-Shari 
400,000 francs. And the Budget General was subsidized by 
the mother-country (1,532,016 francs in 1912). 

Nevertheless, the financial development of French Central 
Africa is on the road to improvement. 

The same cannot, however, be said of the Belgian Congo. 
There the situation in 1913 was as follows: — 

Conclusive figures for 1912 were not yet available. The 
ordinary budget had closed with a provisional deficit of 
6,333,354.38 francs. 38-9 million francs of loans from the 
extraordinary budgets of the years 1909-1912 had not yet 
been taken up in 191 2; 20,220,234 francs were spent. The 
ordinary budgets of the years 1908- 191 2 had resulted in a 
surplus of 6,075,780.29 francs; but there was no revenue to 
meet the expenditure under the extraordinary budget which 
reached a total of 60,840,000 francs. That was covered by 
the issue of treasury notes. 

In the years 1913 and 1914 revenue under the ordinary 
budget stood at 40,418,100 francs and 30451.276 francs 
respectively as against expenditure to the sum of 5o.933.o64 
francs and 51,936,000 francs. There were deficits of io>^ 
and 2\y2 million francs. There was in addition the expendi- 
ture under the extraordinary budget covered by loans 
(11-14 million francs in 1914)- 

The consolidated debt of the colony (principally 4 per 



58 The German Empire of Central Africa 

cent, loans) demanded 6,692,595 francs for interest in 1914, 
only 5,487,535 francs in 1913. There was also, on the 31st 
December, 1913, a floating debt of 4,720,250 francs, and an 
indebtedness for treasury notes of 90 million francs. 

In the statement of expenditure for the year 1914, giving 
a total of 51,936,000 francs, there were items of 13,972,845 
francs for interest on debt, 783,860 francs for subsidies to 
the missions, 227,115 francs for contribution to the museum 
at Tervueren, 1,574,150 francs for pensions, 19,000 francs 
in subsidies for fet€s, 10,000 francs for a representative in 
Cape Town, 56,123 francs for the Colonial Council, 20,000 
francs for the Commission for the Protection of Natives. If 
we deduct these sums from the expenditure of the year 1914 
(we need not concern ourselves with the indebt-edness of the 
colony which is due to former misgovernment) the total 
expenditure stands at 35,272,847 francs as against a revenue 
of 30,451,276 francs. The deficit amounted to just 5 million 
francs. And we may note, too, that included in this ex- 
penditure of 35/4 million francs is an item of 6,473,400 francs 
for the colonial troops. 

Further, the railway between Matadi and Stanley Pool 
always produced a huge surplus, but this, to the great detri- 
ment of the colony, went to private speculators, not to the 
public revenues; the railway was built by a private company; 
as far back as 19 12 the Belgian Government had thoughts of 
taking it over; but it got no further. The dividends of the 
railway amounted to no less than 40,417,000 francs in the five 
years 1908 to 1912. During the same period there was no 
revenue to meet the expenditure of the extraordinary budget 
to the amount of 60,840,000 francs. Such inconsistencies 
could not exist for long under German administration, and the 
financial position of the Belgian Congo also would soon be 
satisfactory. 

We said all that is necessary about the economic life of 
the Belgian Congo in an earlier chapter. French Central 
Africa was still in a very undeveloped condition in this respect. 

A careful survey of the few figures which have been given 



The German Empire of Central Africa 59 

must lead to the conclusion that a simple combination of the 
four great colonies would certainly not have the evil conse- 
quences for their general economic prosperity which are 
always anticipated in Germany, even in colonial circles. A 
colony of Mittel-Afrika, even if it is nothing but a continua- 
tion on a greater scale of our old bureaucratic colonial system, 
would be no great burden to the German Empire. We should 
manage with a subsidy of ten million marks, and for that we 
should have a colony with a foreign trade of some 300 million 
marks, which would have risen in a decade probably to about 
500 million. That would be the result, supposing we con- 
tinued our work just as before the war. 

But German Mittel-Afrika is to be something quite 
different, the beginning of an independent German tropical 
economic system, of German world-economics and v/orld- 
policy. 

Forty thousand Germans from overseas are to be attracted 
into the country in the first two or three years after the war, 
and are to bring with them, roughly, a thousand million marks 
of capital. Indemnification of the colonists in the old protec- 
torates and of the railway companies would bring in a further 
two or three hundred million marks. Economic activity would 
awaken with giant strength. 

Further, in the parts of this great area where the climate 
is suitable, as, for instance, in Angola (of which we must under 
any circumstances have a great part, if not the whole), we 
should settle 10,000 small farmers, people with a little capital 
from Brazil, Venezuela (where there are German settlers 
working with their own hands in the loth degree of northern 
latitude!) and Australia. Each of these settlers, as is proved 
by experience in Brazil, would in the second or third year 
offer the trader for sale, and even for export, products to the 
value of some thousands of marks. If each one can produce 
3,000 marks' worth, there will be a quantity of maize, tobacco, 
coffee and manioc for export to the value of 30 million marks. 
The small holdings of the natives will produce at least double 
that sum, while the self-grown products of the country, such 



60 The German Empire of Central Africa 

as rubber, ivory, copal, palm-kernels and palm-oil — especially 
if the oil industry is energetically pushed — are bound in two 
or three years to provide exports to the value of 120-150 
million marks. The Cameroons and the Belgian and French 
Congo exported more than 50 million marks' worth of rubber 
in 1912, 5-6 million marks' worth of ivory and 6 million marks' 
worth of copal. The exports of palm-kernels and palm-oil 
only amounted to some 15 million marks; in view of the vast 
numbers of existing oil-palms these figures can speedily be 
multiplied fourfold. The export of hides alone in German 
East Africa reached a total of 53^ million marks. The Belgian 
Congo produced gold to the value of 3 million marks, and 
s-everal million marks' worth of copper and tin. There are the 
additional exports of the cocoa, sisal, rubber and cotton 
plantations (the East African exports of sisal alone amounted 
to 10.6 million marks). If, therefore, the output of tropical 
products in Mittel-Afrika is taken energetically in hand 
immediately after the war_, w€ can count on exports to the 
value of at least 300-350 million marks in two or three years, 
with the prospect of at least doubling the amount in a further 
five to seven years. The imports will correspond. Soon 
after the war Mittel-Afrika will take imports to the value of 
500 million marks and ten years later of 800-1,000 million. At 
the beginning the imports of textiles will be mostly from enemy 
sources ; these imports might pay a duty of 20 to 25 per cent, 
of their value. If we take an average duty of 10 per cent, 
and if we impose it on imports reaching a total value of 400 
million marks, our customs revenue amounts at once to 40 
million marks. 

The white men will pay taxes and licence-fees of all sorts ; 
the native tax will be raised. Trade licences will bring in 
large sums, as will the treasury's share in the railways and 
the shipping on the great rivers and lakes. 

There seems to be no reason why Mittel-Afrika, if we 
go the right way to work, should not very soon have a revenue 
of its own of 100 million marks. 

The country will have to provide a great colonial army 



The German Empire of Central Africa 61 

for its defence, at first 50,000 to 60,000 negroes under 5,000 
commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Supposing 
these cost on an average 6,000 marks a head, that makes 
30 million marks a year. We shall have to estimate the cost 
of a black soldier at from 400 to 500 marks a year; that 
makes another 25 to 30 million marks. The colony itself could 
supply 40 to 50 million marks towards the cost of its army ; 
especially since in the first years after the war the German 
commissioned and non-commissioned officers would have to 
take in hand a great part of the administration. But our aim 
must be the speedy transference of the whole country to civil 
administration and the concentration of the colonial army 
in a few large centres and its training for war. 

The civil administration of these vast territories will need 
a great army of officials, of government doctors, farming 
officials (such as agriculturists and veterinary surgeons), and 
officials connected with administration and communications. 
We shall have to count on an expenditure of 30-40 million 
marks for these. Further, we must provide means for the 
payment of interest on loans ; for this great colony would 
soon have to borrow large sums of money for the construction 
of pioneer routes and means of communication. Permanent 
burdens to the extent of some 10 million marks have already 
to be borne for German East Africa and th-e Cameroons. 

The new colony, therefore, must not be burdened from 
the outset too heavily v with military expenditure, and this 
should be met in the proportion of half from home and half 
from the colony. Germany must accustom herself to regard 
the colonial army as part of the German an'med forces. The 
colonial troops will insure us against African forces being 
brought against our home fronts in future wars. If we look 
at the question from that point of view, a demand for 30 or 
even 50 million marks for the colonial army will be regarded 
as a matter of course, and this expenditure should appear, 
not in the colonial budget, but in the Imperial military 
vote. 

At the head of Mittel-Afrika should be a Viceroy, a man 



62 The German Empire of Central Africa 

of princely birth, whose personality would be a guarantee 
that there was no friction between the military and civil 
administration. The Viceroy — whose residence should be as 
central as possible, but within easy and rapid reach of the 
coast — would preside over the central Government; under 
him would come the governors of the provinces. The whole 
country would be divided into four or five provinces. These 
would be as far as possible independent, after the Brazilian 
pattern; but the army and roads and railways would be 
under the central administration. Colonial legislation would 
be in the hands of the Viceroy, who would be responsible to 
the Emperor. He would be supported by a Council composed 
of delegates from the provinces. From the very beginning 
the development of as far-reaching an autonomy as possible 
must be aimed at. Every settlement of energetic Germans, 
whatever their religious beliefs and their political bias, should 
be encouraged. 

Above all, official nervousness with regard to the intro- 
duction of colonists must go by the board. This is nothing 
but fear of the difficulties which such settlers might cause. 
Negroes, Indians, Arabs are, of course, much easier to deal 
with than white colonists; and so the latter are unpopular 
with officials. But that must not determine poHcy, when the 
future of our country is at stake. 

Dr. Hans Schafer, who was employed for four years as 
railway doctor on the railway construction in the Cameroons, 
stood up for the view that even tropical Africa will be a white 
man's country ; that the negro will die out, and that labour will 
be secured by the mechanical use of water-power. Schafer 
delivered a lecture before the Medical Society of Berlin on the 
7th February, 191 7. According to the Berliner Kleiner 
Wochenschrift (1917, No. 25) he proved on this occasion on 
the strength of his own experience — and he had conducted 
over 300 post-mortem examinations — the frightful physical 
inferiority of the negro. 

That is a very one-sided observation. It is not always the 
soundest men who come to railway work, as we have shown 



The German Empire of Central Africa 63 

in a previous chapter. Dr. Schafer again only saw a part of 
the Cameroons. There are, even in the Cameroons very 
strong and healthy negroes, just as there are in the Belgian 
and French Congo and especially in East Africa. Yet 
Schafer's concluding remarks cannot but meet with approval : 

What the first Government doctor in the Cameroons, 
l^nednch Plehn, looking far ahead, prophesied twenty years 
ago has come true— that the Cameroons would be one of the 
healthiest tropical countries for white men, when we suc- 
ceeded in getting the better of malaria. No white man who 
lives on sensible hygienic principles need suffer seriously any 
more from malaria, much less die of the formerly so dreaded 
malarial complication, black-water fever. 

The common opinion that the white man, who in general 
is far tougher and stronger than the negro, cannot live in 
Central Africa is merely a prejudice. And this opinion is 
largely based on the observed results of a habitual excessive 
consumption of alcohol. This practice is common where 
there is no family life, and the white man is driven to drink. 
It will not be the case in self-contained settlements with 
churches and schools. Alcoholic excess is a symptom of 
undeveloped social conditions. As these become stable, the 
danger vanishes. 

Let us conquer our prejudices and advance with cheerful 
confidence towards Mittel-Afrika! It will soon become a 
prosperous, wealthy colony — the sure foundation of a great 
German world-policy, that policy based on reality which must 
now take the place of the policy of illusion which we 
followed up till the outbreak of war. 

"Free from the Anglo-Saxons!" — that is our watchword; 
German Mittel-Afrika is the fulfilment of this call. 



BO 19 



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